Chicago’s Uptown neighborhood will host a free outdoor concert this Saturday that stretches from Thomas Paine’s Revolutionary War-era writing to Beyoncé’s “Freedom,” tracing 250 years of American protest and liberation through music, poetry and spoken word. The show, titled “America: Songs and Stories of Protest and Freedom,” lands at Clarendon Community Center Park on August 22 as part of a citywide series marking the nation’s Semiquincentennial.
According to WBEZ, the free multi-genre concert explores the history of the United States through music, poetry and ballads, pairing spoken-word narration with live jazz performance. The performance is the second stop in a three-part series that debuted at Seward Park in Near North on July 25 and will wrap up at Washington Park in Hyde Park, outside the DuSable History Museum, on September 19, according to the Chicago Park District.
The Uptown stop takes place at Clarendon Community Center Park, 4501 N. Clarendon Ave., a longtime fieldhouse and gathering hub for the North Side neighborhood. The concert is free, per WBEZ’s reporting on the event.
A Script Spanning Two and a Half Centuries
The production’s script draws on historic texts and literary works, including Thomas Paine’s 18th-century “Liberty Tree,” Emma Lazarus’ “The New Colossus” and Langston Hughes’ “Weary Blues,” woven alongside musical selections that range from Woody Guthrie’s “This Land Is Your Land” and Marvin Gaye’s “Mercy Mercy Me” to Sweet Honey in the Rock’s “Ella’s Song” and Beyoncé’s “Freedom,” according to the Chicago Defender.
Narrating the piece is Cheryl Corley, a spoken-word historian who is also an NPR correspondent serving as the network’s Midwest Bureau Chief based in Chicago. Corley previously worked as news director and City Hall reporter at WBEZ before joining NPR in 1995, and DePaul University awarded her an honorary doctorate this past June.
A Jazz Quintet Built for the Occasion
Backing Corley’s narration is the Lucy Smith Quintet, led by Chicago jazz musician Lucy Smith, whose lineup features Jon Deitemyer on drums, Carmani Edwards on bass, William Kurk on keyboards, and alto saxophonists Greg Ward and Lenard Simpson, the Chicago Defender reports. Smith received the 2025 Black Excellence Award for Outstanding Achievement in Music from the Black Arts and Culture Alliance of Chicago at its 24th annual ceremony, recognizing her standing within the city’s Black performing arts community.
Corley and Smith’s partnership predates this year’s tour. The pair have previously mounted collaborative shows blending narrative and live music, including “Chicago Bound: The Great Migration of the Blues” and “Shout OUT: A Celebration of Women in Word and Song.” Last summer, they produced “Chicago’s Soul: The Words and Music of Gwendolyn Brooks and Curtis Mayfield,” a free park concert series that stopped at Sherman, Warren and Garfield Parks, according to Smith’s own website.
Funded Through Chicago's Night Out in the Parks
The concert series runs through the Chicago Park District’s 14th annual “Night Out in the Parks” program, an initiative launched in 2013 that delivers more than 1,000 hours of free cultural programming across 200 parks in all 77 community areas, in partnership with the city’s Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events. That municipal backing is what allows a professionally staged, multi-artist production to appear at no cost in neighborhood green spaces across the North, West and South sides.
The Uptown performance also folds into the nationwide America250 movement marking the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, an effort led by the U.S. Semiquincentennial Commission that has pushed local arts institutions around the country to explore American heritage through varied cultural lenses. Hoodline has covered other entries in that wave of programming, including a Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra program of three America250 world premieres and civic celebrations in Tennessee and Wisconsin featuring drone shows and parades. In Chicago, that same anniversary energy is showing up not with fireworks but with a jazz quintet and a script that runs from the Revolutionary War to the present day, set to unfold for free in an Uptown park this Saturday.
