Harry Belafonte, the consummate
performer and entertainer, the acclaimed singer,
actor and racial justice activist, is now an
ancestor. And he has left us much to consider
about the role of the Black artist in society,
and the need for the Black artist to use art to
change society.
In his 96 years of life,
Belafonte maintained a high standard of
excellence as a pioneer in the entertainment
industry and a breaker of barriers. With his
1956 album Calypso, the Harlem-born artist
became the first person to sell a gold
record - with over 1 million
copies. In addition, Harry Belafonte is one of a
select group of people to reach EGOT
status - Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and
Tony - having received an honorary Oscar, a
Tony, and Emmy and three Grammys.
The first
Black person to receive an Emmy, the
first Black TV producer, and one of the first
Black people to enjoy a wide national audience
and to start an all-Black music publishing
company, the man did it all.
However impressive his
achievements may have been on the stage, screen
and in music, Harry Belafonte truly left his
mark as an activist, a civil rights and human
rights leader, a humanitarian and a moral
compass of our community. A friend and confidant
of Dr. Martin Luther King, Belafonte used his
status, wealth and fame to raise money and
contribute funds to the civil rights movement.
And while some people may know he was involved
in the 1963 March on Washington, few may realize
what Harry Belafonte did out in these streets,
all in the name of justice.
Consider this particularly
remarkable story of a risky car trip that Harry
Belafonte took with Sidney Poitier from Newark to Greenwood,
Mississippi. The year was 1964, and only
days before, three civil rights workers - James
Chaney, Michael Schwerner and Andrew Goodman -
were found dead. The Student Nonviolence
Coordinating Committee (SNCC) needed funds to
keep their activities going in the South.
Belafonte and Poitier raised $70,000 - which was
a lot of money back then - and drove the money
down to Mississippi. While in the Magnolia
State, the Ku Klux Klan ambushed the duo with a
pickup truck, fired shots and attempted to drive
them off the road. A convoy of SNCC vehicles
came to their defense and led them to safety.
Belafonte
also provided advice to John
F. Kennedy and
arranged for Kennedy and Dr. King to meet during
the 1960 presidential election. And the artist
also played a role in the transformation of Robert
F. Kennedy.
In May 1963, James Baldwin arranged to have
then-U.S. Attorney General Kennedy meet with
Black civil rights leaders, intellectuals and
artists in Manhattan, including Belafonte and
folks such as Lorraine Hansberry, Lena Horne,
Kenneth Clark, King advisor Clarence Jones and
freedom activist Jerome Smith. The group gave
Kennedy some real talk on what he and his
brother’s administration failed to do and what
it had to do on civil
rights and
to help Black community.
Harry Belafonte certainly broke
barriers as an artist, but he was here for the
culture and for social change. The star of films
such as Carmen Jones, Buck and the Preacher and Uptown Saturday Night also produced the score for the
hip-hop movie Beat Street. Belafonte also played a
major role in “USA for Africa,” the
artists who came together in 1985 to raise funds
for famine in Africa with their groundbreaking
single, “We Are the World.”
A new generation of performers
and athletes has much to learn from Harry
Belafonte. The man known for “Day-O,” the
“Banana Boat Song,” this son of immigrants from
Jamaica and Martinique leaned into his influence
as an entertainment powerhouse. And he sought
justice.
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