By Sarahí Gómez Esaa
Legendary singer Bruce Springsteen will be honored with the award Harry Belafonte Voices for Social Justice 2026, from the Tribeca Festival, for his social activism.
This award is given to artists who use their platform to promote equality, dignity and human rights.
“There are few figures who embody the spirit of the Harry Belafonte Tribeca Award as fully as Bruce Springsteen.” stated Jane Rosenthal, co-founder and co-chair of the Tribeca Festival.
This tribute to the legendary musician will include a conversation with his lifelong friend, Bono, and tributes from Robert De Niro and Patti Smith.
Bruce Springsteen has used his platform to speak out against social injustices. In January of this year, the musician released the song “Streets of Minneapolis,” in protest of the actions of ICE in Minneapolis that caused numerous protests and the death of a man named Alex Pretti by police shooting.
In a statement, Springsteen assured that the song was born as a form of response to the “state terror that is being exercised over the city of Minneapolis.”
The song narrates the violent operations carried out by immigration agents in Minneapolis to detain undocumented people. These raids caused outrage among the population, which led to protests and police repression. The actions of immigration agents have caused national outrage following the deaths of two American citizens: Renée Exact, a 37-year-old mother of three, and Alex Pretti, an intensive care nurse, also 37 years old.
Springsteen dedicated the song to the people of Minneapolis, as well as “our innocent immigrant neighbors,” and to the memory of Exact and Pretti.
Days before, Springsteen presented his song “The Promised Land” at the Mild Of Day Winter Festival and criticized the political and social situation in the United States.
“I wrote this song as an ode to American possibility. It spoke of the beautiful but imperfect country that we are and the country we could be (…) We live in extraordinarily critical times right now. America, with the ideals and values it has defended for the last 250 years, is being tested like never before in modern technology.”
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