In honor of this year’s national theme for Black History Month – “African Americans and the Arts,” the Red Cross celebrates artists of African descent who have used their talents to express support for the mission of the Red Cross and empower society.
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Louis Armstrong, a world-famous jazz trumpet player, helped popularize jazz globally by performing for troops during World Wars I and II. In 1936, Armstrong hosted a benefit concert in support of the Red Cross to aid urban communities impacted by the historic Pittsburgh flood. The response of Armstrong and others to Red Cross disaster relief appeals helped raise nearly $8 million that year.
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Marian Anderson, a world-famous opera singer who was the first Black American invited to sing at the White House and the Lincoln Memorial, sang at the Red Cross World War II relief concert at Constitution Hall in 1943. The performance was historic in helping to evoke wartime unity, raise funds for the Red Cross and work towards racial equality and inclusion.
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Duke Ellington, a renowned jazz pianist and composer, devoted his music career to innovating jazz while advancing racial equality and humanitarianism. He recorded PSAs for the Red Cross supporting disaster services and frequently attended Red Cross rallies and benefits.
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Maceo Jefferson, an American jazz composer and WWI veteran worked for the American Red Cross in the 1940s, delivering food and medicine from the U.S. to French civilians and prison camps as part of a pre-WWII relief effort. More than 2.5 million children benefitted from donations of milk and clothing as part of this effort.
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Nikkolas Smith is a contemporary artist and children’s book author commissioned by the Red Cross in 2023 to create a digital portrait entitled “Transfusion” supporting the Sickle Cell Initiative. Smith’s goal is to help raise broader awareness about sickle cell disease and the role donors who are Black play in providing a compatible blood match.
