Big & Rich will join Darfur activists O.A.R., Lupe Fiasco, Olympic gold medalist Joey Cheek, former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and a host of others in New York City for the Save Darfur Now: Voices To Stop Genocide.

The September 17 rally in Central Park’s East Meadow is timed to coincide with a meeting of the 61st United Nations General Assembly, and is intended to encourage world leaders to take immediate action to end the ongoing, government-sponsored genocide in the Darfur region of Sudan.

The Central Park event will be coordinated with similar events occurring simultaneously in 20 major cities around the world. At each event people will wear blue hats to show their support for immediate deployment of U.N. peacekeepers to Darfur. The blue hats symbolize the blue helmets or berets that U.N. peacekeepers wear in combat zones.

The New York City rally marks yet another step in O.A.R.’s commitment to the Darfur cause. Vocalist Marc Roberge and guitarist Richard On will perform a special acoustic set at the rally. Over the course of the summer O.A.R., which stands for Of a Revolution, has allowed volunteers from the Save Darfur campaign to inform audiences at their shows about the crisis occurring in Darfur.

Since 2003, the Sudanese government has encouraged the deaths of more than 400,000 people, forced 2.5 million people to flee their homes, and left more than 3.5 million of its citizens reliant on humanitarian aid.