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Many individuals are accustomed to the calypso and folks music gifted to us from the late Jamaican American icon Harry Belafonte, whose 98th birthday is Saturday. In 2021, Black Music Sunday profiled Belafonte.
“Born in Harlem to West Indian parents on March 1, 1927, Harold George Belafonte, Jr. would spend some of his early years in his mother’s native Jamaica,” I wrote on the time, earlier than turning to Isaac Rosen’s Musicians Information biography for particulars of his youth, and his transition into the world of leisure.
Within the 5 years he spent on the island he not solely absorbed the music that was such an important a part of the tradition but in addition noticed the consequences of colonialism, the political oppression that native Jamaicans needed to endure underneath British rule. “That environment gave me much of my sense of the world at large and what I wanted to do with it,” Belafonte was quoted as saying within the Paul Masson Summer season Collection. “It helped me carve out a tremendous link to other nations that reflect a similar temperament or character.”
As soon as again in Harlem, one other culturally and artistically wealthy surroundings, Belafonte turned road sensible, studying the arduous classes of survival within the massive metropolis. When the US entered World Conflict II, he ended his highschool training and enlisted within the U.S. Navy. After an honorable discharge he returned to New York Metropolis, the place he bounced between odd jobs. His first foray into the world of leisure got here within the late Forties when he was given two tickets to a manufacturing of the American Negro Theater. He was hooked after one efficiency. “I was absolutely mesmerized by that experience,” he informed the Ottawa Citizen in 1990. “It was really a spiritual, mystical feeling I had that night. I went backstage to see if there was anything I could do.” His first main function with the corporate was in Irish playwright Sean O’Casey’s Juno and the Paycock. Impressed by the ability and message of O’Casey’s phrases, and by the promise of theater normally, Belafonte enrolled within the Dramatic Workshop of the New College for Social Analysis, learning underneath well-known German director Erwin Piscator, whose different college students included Rod Steiger and Bea Arthur.
Whereas Belafonte lived most of his life in the US, each these early years spent within the Caribbean and his Caribbean-born mom formed his future as an activist.
Geographer Joshua Jelly-Schapiro explored Belafonte’s Caribbean heritage for NPR in 2023.
Island Man: How Harry Belafonte’s Caribbean roots helped him change America
Since Belafonte’s dying earlier this yr at 96, tributes to his monumental life have been dominated by his legacies in the US. That is the nation the place he was born and left his deepest marks: by releasing an album of ersatz Caribbean folks tunes, in 1956, that turned one of many first LPs by a solo artist to promote one million copies; by being the primary Black man to turn out to be a intercourse image for mainstream America; through the use of his ensuing royalties and fame to bankroll Martin Luther King’s motion for Civil Rights; by performing as an essential conduit, as an intimate of Robert Kennedy, between King’s motion and the federal authorities. And that was simply his heyday; his American story additionally contains chapters, in a while, as a pathbreaking visitor host of The Tonight Present; because the producer of “We Are the World” and of Beat Avenue; as an elder radical and ethical scold who can also be well-recalled, by these of us who grew up within the Seventies and ’80s, as a genial fixture on Sesame Avenue.
But it surely’s inconceivable to grasp Belafonte’s bigger which means, as not merely an American determine however a diasporic and international one, with out understanding his Caribbean roots. The Jamaican village the place he stayed along with his grandmother as a boy, amid St. Ann’s previous plantations, was an out-of-the-way nook of a area to whose islands have been trafficked the vast majority of the ten million enslaved Africans who, between Columbus’ arrival and the 1800s, endured the Center Passage — but in addition a spot, like communities throughout this area “where globalization began,” that is been formed for hundreds of years by cultural mixing, long-distance commerce and the worldly outlook of its individuals.
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In Harry’s old-school politics, the “human family” mattered. However till the tip, his worldview was formed by having traveled between Harlem and Jamaica, and sensing that one thing profound joined their individuals. He remained, till his life’s finish, deeply engaged with the politics and other people of Africa — the place considered one of his earliest achievements, after he was requested by John Kennedy to assist launch the Peace Corps, concerned organizing an airlift from Kenya that included the daddy of 1 Barack Obama. That non-public tie did not cease Belafonte from criticizing the reasonable insurance policies of America’s first Black president — a politician who turned a totemic determine to American liberals in methods it is arduous to think about taking place if Belafonte, many years earlier and evincing an analogous mien and style, hadn’t finished so first.
For a deep dive into Belafonte’s life and profession—in his personal phrases—try his autobiography, “My Song: A Memoir of Art, Race, and Defiance.” Sarah Rodman reviewed it for The Boston Globe in 2011.
‘My Song’ by Harry Belafonte
A life wealthy in music, performing, activismSomeplace amid the accounts of when he turned the primary artist to promote one million copies of an album, the primary black main actor to romance a white main actress in a significant Hollywood movie, and the person who was requested to assist pick the garments that Martin Luther King Jr. can be buried in, you notice simply how extraordinary Harry Belafonte’s life has been.
If Belafonte had merely pursued one strand of that life — the immensely common singer, the Tony Award-winning actor, the highly effective political and social activist — it will have made fascinating materials for a e book. That he managed to cram all three into his 84 years makes “My Track,’’ his charming memoir written with Michael Shnayerson, not solely a generally exhausting chronicle of Belafonte’s personal story however an intriguing take a look at US historical past from the late ’40s to the current.
In 2012, Belafonte mentioned his e book and life with author, broadcaster, and documentary filmmaker Sarfraz Manzoor for The Guardian.
From The Guardian video notes:
Singer and civil rights activist Harry Belafonte, 85, tells Sarfraz Manzoor about his life and work in music, cinema and preventing for social equality – as chronicled in a brand new memoir. He additionally discusses his friendship with Martin Luther King, his relationship with President John F Kennedy, and the humiliation that led him to turn out to be extra closely concerned within the struggle towards racial segregation
The opposite facet of Belafonte’s life—his influence o, and participation within the battle for civil rights—hadn’t been explored or highlighted a lot in movie till filmmaker Susanne Rostock joined Belafonte and his daughter Gina to supply a function documentary movie in 2011. “Sing Your Song.”
For those who don’t have the time proper now to observe “Sing Your Song,” right here’s a complete evaluate from the “That’s How the Light Gets In” weblog.
All of us see the world because it exists; fewer envision what it would seem like if made to vary; and fewer nonetheless attempt to put collectively the individuals and concepts that make change occur. Paul Robeson was one; Martin Luther King, Jr. was one; Bobby Kennedy turned one. And, after all, Nelson Mandela. I had simply sufficient imaginative and prescient to see that they have been visionaries, and to do what I may to assist.
– Harry Belafonte, My TrackThe movie reveals the important thing function he performed – for instance, serving to to organise the 1963 March on Washington, and performing as a conduit between Dr. King and the Kennedys, educating them in regards to the scenario within the American south and steering them in the direction of a clearer dedication to civil rights. On the coronary heart of this was his shut friendship with Martin Luther King, and one of the crucial shifting sequences within the movie recounts his private devastation at Dr. King’s dying.
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Sing Your Song integrates original interviews with a wealth of archival material from home movies to newsreels and film and TV snippets. One with which the film illustrates how deeply institutionalised racism was in America at the time occurred when, recording an episode of a TV show in March 1968, Belafonte was singing a duet with Petula Clark and the two touched. Chrysler, the show’s sponsor objected to the ‘interracial touching’ fearing to offend Southern viewers. Both Clark and Belafonte refused to re-shoot the performance.
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Yet one more piece of archive footage, most likely by no means seen prior to now, is of a section from the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour on CBS in 1968 by which Belafonte sings ‘Don’t Cease the Carnival’ towards a backdrop of newsreel footage of police brutality throughout the protests surrounding the 1968 Democratic Nationwide Conference in Chicago. The whole clip was by no means aired by CBS and in the end resulted within the present being cancelled by CBS.
Right here’s the official trailer:
Right here’s the complete movie.
In 2024, Rostock adopted up “Sing Your Song” with a brand new movie, “Following Harry.”
In Following Harry filmmaker Susanne Rostock joins Harry Belafonte over the last twelve years of his life, as he embarks on a deeply private and reflective journey, whereas mentoring an rising group of artists and activists dedicated to following in his footsteps and disrupting injustice to implement impactful change.
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In 2011, Harry invited me to share area inside his brand-new workplace positioned on the highest flooring of the Martin Luther King Constructing in Manhattan. In 2012, with the homicide of Trayvon Martin, I used to be given the intimate vantage level of a first-hand witness to Harry’s quest to interact probably the most influential and expansive minds of the youth, artists, and activists alike. The questions Harry raised, the solutions he unearthed and the unconventional challenges he put forth as to the place we’re as a nation, as a world, impressed and motivated the following technology of leaders, creators and activists. I felt this might turn out to be a blueprint for the longer term. At this level in Harry’s life, I acknowledged the movie would even be a narrative of growing older, of legacy, of accountability for what one leaves behind.
iMBD notes that this was the “remaining look of Harry Belafonte. He died on April 25, 2023, after the documentary was accomplished [but]previous to its launch.“
Right here’s the “Following Harry” trailer:
Dr. Henry Louis Gates Jr. wrote an in depth piece on Belafonte for The New Yorker in 1996, which comprises some stunning (or maybe not so stunning) particulars on Belafonte’s interactions with community tv.
Belafonte’s Balancing Act
Negotiating his place in common tradition and his political conscience, Harry Belafonte has made among the hardest selections in present enterprise.
Belafonte’s involvement with the civil-rights motion within the sixties was no parlor undertaking, and his friendship with King was no movie star air kiss, both. Belafonte first met King in 1956, throughout the Montgomery bus boycotts. Although the black clergy’s betrayals of Du Bois and Robeson had left him skeptical of the breed, King received him over by his humility and his earnestness. “I need your help,” King informed him. “I have no idea where this movement is going.” An alliance was cast that lasted till King’s dying. King was a frequent visitor of Belafonte’s in New York, and Belafonte was one of many few who may function trusted conduits between King and the Southern Christian Management Convention, on the one hand, and the Washington institution, on the opposite. He put up the seed cash to assist the newly based Scholar Nonviolent Coördinating Committee. He financed a bunch that included Fannie Lou Hamer, Julian Bond, Bob Moses, Jim Foreman, and John Lewis to tour Africa and set up worldwide liaisons there. It was Belafonte who bailed King out of the Birmingham jail, and who raised cash to bail out a lot of jailed pupil activists. Belafonte might be oddly reticent at occasions, and, although he’s clearly pleased with the function he performed within the civil-rights period, he speaks of those issues with some hesitancy. King’s widow, Coretta Scott King, is extra forthcoming. She remembers a day within the early sixties when Belafonte informed King, laughing, “Martin, one of these days some of these crackers are going to kill you, and I’m going to end up having to take care of your family.” Each issues got here to move, Belafonte having insured King’s life closely for his household’s sake. Mrs. King describes him as a member of King’s small “strategy committee,” a trusted adviser in addition to one of many few efficient fund-raisers within the motion; and in moments of disaster Belafonte’s friendship with Robert Kennedy, then Lawyer Common, proved invaluable.
In the meantime, Belafonte held on to his day job, persevering with to tour and make tv appearances. However TV had its vexations for him, too. In 1960, for instance, he obtained an Emmy for a tv particular he did for the “Revlon Hour,” referred to as “Tonight with Belafonte.” For the reason that present was additionally successful with viewers, Revlon determined that it was on to a superb factor. In keeping with Belafonte, an settlement was reached by which he can be given one million {dollars} to supply and function host of 5 reveals. The second present, that includes black and white luminaries from jazz, folks, and pop, earned raves. Then he was introduced up quick by actuality.
“Now I get called by Charlie Revson to have a meeting,” he informed me. “Would I come alone? I can’t wait—I’m figuring he wants to give me half the company, or something. So we’re having lunch in his private dining room, and he’s saying, ‘As a Jew in Jersey City, I understand oppression’—da, da, da, da—‘but we have to talk about the show. Good ratings. Good reviews. Very nice. But we’re getting some response that says you should do it all-black. If you could just take all the white people out . . .’ I couldn’t believe it. And I said, ‘Mr. Revson, let me tell you something. If you’d asked me to put on a flowery shirt and sing more calypso tunes, and dance more, because that’s what white people would like, I would consider it. But what you’ve asked me to do—there’s no way to square it. I cannot become resegregated.’ He said, ‘O.K.’ Four o’clock that afternoon, I had a check for eight hundred thousand dollars. Charlie Revson said, ‘Goodbye. You’re off the air.’ ”
Let’s shut with an interview Belafonte did with civil rights activist and journalist Charlayne Hunter-Gault for PBS in 2018, which rings powerfully in lately of Donald Trump’s struggle on range, fairness, and inclusion. He notes not simply the necessity for white of us to step up, however the necessity to move the torch to younger of us.
Thanks and Comfortable Birthday, Harry. Might you relaxation in peace and energy.
Please be a part of me within the feedback for extra on Belafonte, and the weekly Caribbean Information Roundup—and please share your individual Belafonte recollections.
