{"id":267448,"date":"2026-06-15T16:04:07","date_gmt":"2026-06-15T16:04:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/267448\/"},"modified":"2026-06-15T16:04:07","modified_gmt":"2026-06-15T16:04:07","slug":"exclusive-jane-fonda-counters-trumps-birthday-bash-with-nyc-protest-concert","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/267448\/","title":{"rendered":"Exclusive: Jane Fonda Counters Trump\u2019s Birthday Bash With NYC Protest Concert"},"content":{"rendered":"

Fonda\u2019s second annual celebration, hosted by the Committee for the First Amendment, took place at the historic Town Hall, a Midtown mainstay that was founded in 1921 by suffragists. A crowd of mostly older Americans surged in with signs that reflected the stage set itself: protest placards and banners framed a large screen that projected anthems throughout the concert. Some read, \u201cWe will not be silenced,\u201d while others urgently pleaded, \u201cDefend the constitution.\u201d<\/p>\n

The concert was livestreamed nationwide to 5,000 registered watch parties. \u201cThere could be as many as a million people watching this,\u201d Fonda told VF\u2014and nearly 200,000 viewers streamed it on No Kings<\/a>\u2019 YouTube alone. Fonda had helped amass a star-studded crew: Bette Midler, Julia Roberts, Joy Reid, Patti Smith, Rufus Wainwright, Tessa Thompson, Lily Gladstone, and Ayo Edebiri all showed up to support the cause. The night kicked off with a group of activists encouraging the audience to sing: \u201cRise up, we\u2019re gonna rise up,\u201d they belted, smashing tambourines and twirling in circles. \u201cWe ain\u2019t gonna let nobody turn us around, because the people united will stand our ground.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Image<\/p>\n

Ayo Edebiri makes a surprise appearance onstage, reminding people of the upcoming midterms and urging people to vote.Kevin Mazur\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

When their chorus ended, Fonda herself appeared on the stage in a bright red suit and a shirt bedazzled with the word Resist. \u201cThe government and its cronies is routinely violating the First Amendment to silence artists, shuttering institutions like the Kennedy Center, defunding the arts, banning books, canceling TV hosts that speak out,\u201d she told the booing crowd. \u201cIt\u2019s really bad, and it\u2019s being allowed by cowardly corporations.\u201d<\/p>\n

Just minutes earlier, Fonda sat backstage preparing for her speech. As a stylist coiled the 88-year-old actor\u2019s hair into perfect curls, she stared at the mirror with a resolute gaze and unwavering determination. \u201cThings are happening very fast now,\u201d she told VF. \u201cOne of the reasons that this is so important is that we need to inspire people to take action, because if we don\u2019t do so quickly, we\u2019re not going to have any rights to defend. So time is very much of the essence.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fonda helped revive the Committee for the First Amendment in 2025, an organization dedicated to defending free expression against government oppression and industry complicity. It draws inspiration from the original Committee for the First Amendment, which Fonda\u2019s father, Henry Fonda<\/a>, helped launch in 1947. The group originally aimed to oppose the McCarthy-era, anti-Communist investigations conducted by the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), and its core members included some of the most prominent filmmakers, screenwriters, actors, and entertainers of the mid-20th century: Humphrey Bogart, Lucille Ball, Lauren Bacall, Judy Garland, and Frank Sinatra.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Fonda\u2019s second annual celebration, hosted by the Committee for the First Amendment, took place at the historic Town…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":267449,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[31863,77990,7688,31440,103349,9,24,56,63,65,64,18253,87,4648,15078,103348,87805],"class_list":["post-267448","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-ayo-edebiri","tag-bette-midler","tag-jane-fonda","tag-julia-roberts","tag-lily-gladstone","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-nyc-headlines","tag-nyc-news","tag-patti-smith","tag-politics","tag-protests","tag-robert-de-niro","tag-robert-deniro","tag-rufus-wainwright"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267448","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=267448"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267448\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/267449"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=267448"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=267448"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=267448"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}