The comedian had faced backlash from students at the D.C. school for his comments about the LGBTQ community in a recent Netflix special.
The dedication had initially been postponed last November after critics blasted the comedian’s high-profile Netflix special, “Chappelle told the audience Monday that while he thought the backlash against him lacked nuance and wasn’t about his work, he didn’t want a theater bearing his name to distract from students focusing on the meaning of their art.Chappelle said he decided Friday not to have his name on the school. “But the Ellington family is my family,” he said.
At the time of the controversy last year, Duke Ellington Principal Sandi Logan said she had had formal and informal meetings with students to discuss Chappelle’s comments, including a month of weekly meetings with an advisory committee of student leaders that included representatives from the school’s Gender and Sexuality Alliance.
Established in 1974 with a mission of providing a free, first-class arts education to children in the nation’s capital, Duke Ellington attracts students from across the city and is one of the few area art schools that educates a mostly Black student body.that having the theater named after him was “the most significant honor of my life.”
“I used to skip school. I would hide in there when I was skipping class. Who would have thought that that theater would one day be named after me?” Chappelle said in a speech to donors to raise money for Ellington before a screening of “The Closer” at the Angelika Pop-Up theater at Union Market. “But I understand it because sometimes when you love things, they love you back. And I loved that school.
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