All-star concert on A&E to put spotlight on race conversation

Bruce Springsteen, Alicia Keys, Sting, Pharrell Williams, John Legend, the Zac Brown Band, Pink, Ed Sheeran, Sia and Miguel are among a raft of rock, pop, R&B, country and hip-hop musicians who will take part in a three-hour special slated to air Friday across A&E’s cable channels and iHeartMedia radio stations to confront issues of racial strife troubling multiple communities across the U.S. in recent years.

Scheduled to begin at 8 p.m., “Shining a Light: A Concert for Progress on Race in America” and “Shining a Light: Conversations on Race in America” are taking a two-pronged approach to addressing racial conflicts, combining the concert with location pieces and town hall meetings recorded in the Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, S.C., in Ferguson, Mo., and in Baltimore.