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 the 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.
