{"id":33704,"date":"2023-04-29T00:19:00","date_gmt":"2023-04-29T00:19:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=33704"},"modified":"2023-05-02T12:07:32","modified_gmt":"2023-05-02T12:07:32","slug":"harry-belafonte-leveraged-stardom-for-social-change-his-powerful-voice-always-singing-a-song-for-justice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/harry-belafonte-leveraged-stardom-for-social-change-his-powerful-voice-always-singing-a-song-for-justice\/","title":{"rendered":"Harry Belafonte leveraged stardom for social change, his powerful voice always singing a song for\u00a0justice"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Aram Goudsouzian<\/a>, University of Memphis<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In May 1963, as civil rights demonstrations rocked the city of Birmingham, Alabama<\/a>, Harry Belafonte was at a cocktail party in Manhattan, scolding the then-attorney general of the United States.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou may think you\u2019re doing enough,\u201d he recalled telling Robert F. Kennedy<\/a>, \u201cbut you don\u2019t live with us, you don\u2019t even visit our pain.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Belafonte had many frank and heated conversations with Kennedy. In fact, the singer, actor and activist was on intimate terms with many pivotal figures of the civil rights era.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He was a confidant and adviser to Martin Luther King Jr<\/a> and allied with Ahmed S\u00e9kou Tour\u00e9<\/a>, the president of Guinea. He funded the grassroots activists of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee<\/a> (SNCC) as it battled Jim Crow, and he brought a delegation of Hollywood stars to the March on Washington. Along with his best friend and sometimes-rival, actor Sidney Poitier, Belafonte delivered funds to civil rights volunteers in Greenwood, Mississippi, while the Ku Klux Klan watched their every move<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Belafonte, who died on April 25, 2023, at the age of 96<\/a>, was a unique figure in the history of the Black freedom struggle in the U.S. No other entertainer immersed themselves so deeply in the Civil Rights Movement; no other activist occupied a niche at so many levels of American politics. If he was a powerful voice for justice, it was because he leveraged his celebrity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A
Dorothy Dandridge and Harry Belafonte in the 1954 film \u2018Carmen Jones.\u2019 Silver Screen Collection\/Getty Images<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

A remarkable career<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

On stage, Belafonte was something to behold, a beacon of charisma. Clad in body-hugging shirts with his chest bare, drawing his audience\u2019s eyes to the looping metal rings at the belt of his tight silk pants, he oozed with seduction. Women swooned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And he was wildly successful. In 1957, Belafonte sold more records than Frank Sinatra and Elvis Presley. His repertoire resembled neither Sinatra\u2019s classic pop nor Presley\u2019s up-and-coming rock \u2018n\u2019 roll.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The son of West Indian\/Carribean immigrants, Belafonte inspired a short-lived craze for calypso music thanks to hits such as \u201cDay O<\/a>\u201d and \u201cJamaica Farewell<\/a>,\u201d and he adapted ethnic folk music for popular consumption \u2013 his mainstays included \u201cHava Nagila<\/a>,\u201d the Jewish celebration song.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He also starred in Hollywood films such as \u201cBright Road<\/a>\u201d (1953) and \u201cCarmen Jones<\/a>\u201d (1954). \u201cIsland in the Sun<\/a>,\u201d released in 1957, caused a furor. Though Belafonte never kisses his white co-star, Joan Fontaine, on screen, the film explores the theme of interracial romance. The Southern censors banned it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Belafonte danced around the taboos of race and sex. This exceptionally handsome Black man was charming primarily white audiences, though his light skin color and facial features softened that threat. As a performer, he nudged at racial boundaries without jabbing through them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHarry Belafonte stands at the peak of one of the remarkable careers in U.S, entertainment,\u201d proclaimed Time magazine in a 1959 cover feature<\/a>. He had come a long way from a childhood split between Harlem and Jamaica, from stints in the Navy and as a struggling actor. By then, he was earning about US$750,000 a year, with a lucrative residency at the Riviera Hotel in Las Vegas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Civil rights activism<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

That stardom connected Belafonte to Martin Luther King, Jr.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The civil rights leader called him in 1956 during the Montgomery Bus Boycott<\/a>. Soon Belafonte was part of the movement itself. Following King, he embraced nonviolence. As their friendship strengthened, Belafonte realized the crosses that King bore: the burden of leadership, the fear of death.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Two
Harry Belafonte and Martin Luther King Jr. shaking hands on Aug. 21, 1964, at JFK International Airport in New York. AFP via Getty Images<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Belafonte bought a 21-room apartment on West End Avenue in Manhattan. \u201cMartin would come to think of it as his home away from home, staying with us on many of his New York trips,\u201d he recalled in his memoir, \u201cMy Song<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOn occasion, he brought with him two or three of his closest advisers, and by the mid-sixties, the apartment was one of the movement\u2019s headquarters.\u201d It was a place to both plan strategy and blow off steam, laughing at stories and sipping Harveys Bristol Cream.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ironically, for such a public figure, much of Belafonte\u2019s work was in private.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the 1960s, he served as an essential link between King and the SNCC. He not only bankrolled the young militant activists, but he also listened to their concerns, respected their organizing efforts and communicated their perspectives to influential power brokers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A
The \u2018King of Calypso\u2019 shortly before his 50th birthday in 1976. Erin Combs\/Toronto Star via Getty Images<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

That responsibility to speak for the movement led Belafonte to chide Bobby Kennedy in May 1963. Throughout the early 1960s, he expressed frustration with the attorney general\u2019s detachment from the activists\u2019 struggle. But over time, he came to appreciate Kennedy\u2019s evolution, as he became a U.S. senator and emerged as a voice for the poor, for racial minorities, for \u201cThe Other America.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Famously, in February 1968, Belafonte hosted \u201cThe Tonight Show\u201d for a week<\/a>, using his platform to illuminate Black perspectives and spotlight social injustice. His guests included King, who was about to launch his Poor People\u2019s Campaign, and Kennedy, whom Belafonte urged to start a presidential campaign.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Within months, both men were assassinated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For more than a half-century, Belafonte carried on the legacy of the 1960s, often taking provocative positions<\/a> from the far-left edge of the political spectrum. Like few others, he blended the worlds of culture and politics, singing a song of justice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Aram Goudsouzian<\/a>, Bizot Family Professor of History, University of Memphis<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This article is republished from The Conversation<\/a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Aram Goudsouzian, University of Memphis In May 1963, as civil rights demonstrations rocked the city of Birmingham, Alabama, Harry Belafonte was at a cocktail party in Manhattan, scolding the then-attorney general of the United States. \u201cYou may think you\u2019re doing enough,\u201d he recalled telling Robert F. Kennedy, \u201cbut you don\u2019t live with us, you don\u2019t […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":33705,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[36,4],"tags":[11104,206,500,13961,13962,1409,2367,53,4523,498,13963,8392],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33704"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33704"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33704\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33723,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33704\/revisions\/33723"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33705"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33704"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33704"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33704"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}