Image: Archive Photos/Getty Images.
The late Harry Belafonte, the legendary entertainer and activist, was a man of great candor, style and fortitude. His words and example birthed a conception of freedom and liberation for a new generation to follow. As a man who fought for equity, activism was not just in his work but through how he lived his life. Belafonte has been a generational talent whose artful existence has moved, encouraged and inspired the world. Our community is better because of his place in it.
EBONY reflects on the life and purpose of Harry Belafonte as a quintessential figure in our society.
Harry Belafonte performing in a recording studio, circa 1957. Image: Pictorial Parade/Archive Photos/Getty Images.
“You can cage the singer but not the song.”
– Harry Belafonte
Harry Belafonte with his best friend fellow actor and activist Sidney Poitier at the New York premiere of director George Stevens’ film, “The Greatest Story Ever Told,” in which Poitier starred. Image: Hulton Archive/Getty Images.
“There were two choices that one could make… One was to do the art of the Eurocentric, which many chose to do, and try to do that art in as perfected a way as you possibly can. There’s one thing that’s gonna always be true about that fact or that choice. And that is that you’ll never touch the soul of who you are, because that’s not what your inner soul is experiencing. Every attempt to do something that spoke to the greater truth and the greater glory of what our inner souls were about was what I tried to do.”
– Harry Belafonte
1960-Harry Belafonte with his Emmy Award for his TV specials. Image: Bettmann/Getty Images.
“If I’ve impacted on one heart, one mind, one soul, and brought to that individual a greater truth than that individual came into a relationship with me having, then I would say that I have been successful.”
– Harry Belafonte
Harry Belafonte with Dr Martin Luther King Jr (center) and Sidney Poitier, May 11, 1957. Image: Afro American Newspapers/Gado/Getty Images.
“I was an activist who became an artist, I was not an artist who became an activist.”
– Harry Belafonte
March on Memphis: American civil rights campaigner, and widow of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Coretta Scott King (center left, in black) and civil rights leader Reverend Ralph Abernathy (center, right) lead a massive march following the assassination of her husband only days earlier, Memphis, Tennessee, April 8, 1968. With them are, King’s daughter Yolanda (1955 – 2007) (in white coat at left), singer Harry Belafonte, Kings’ sons Martin Luther King III and Dexter Scott King, and fellow civil rights leaders Andrew Young and Reverend Jesse Jackson (visible directly behind Coretta Scott King). Image: Robert Abbott Sengstacke/Getty Images.
“About my own life, I have no complaints. Yet the problems faced by most Americans of color seem as dire and entrenched as they were half a century.”
– Harry Belafonte
Harry Belafonte speaks at a news conference at the United Nations Headquarters to announce the formation of Artists and Athletes Against Apartheid. At left are actors Gregory Hines, Tony Randall and the tennis star Arthur Ashe. Image: Bettmann/Getty Images.
“When I was born, I was colored. I soon became a Negro. Not long after that I was Black. Most recently, I was African-American. It seems we’re on a roll here. But I am still first and foremost in search of freedom.”
– Harry Belafonte
Harry Belafonte with his wife Julie Belafonte and his some of his kids Adrienne, David waiting to board a plane on January 13, 1962. Image: Afro American Newspapers/Gado/Getty Images.