Harry Belafonte: Singer and civil rights activist dies at 96

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By Mark Savage, BBC Music Correspondent, Apr 25, 2023, 15:04 GMT

Updated 48 minutes ago

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Watch: Harry Belafonte performing live in a BBC TV special in 1977

Harry Belafonte, the singer and actor who broke down racial barriers in the United States, has died at his home in Manhattan, at the age of 96.

One of the most successful African-American pop stars in history, he scored hits with Island In The Sun, Mary’s Boy Child, and Day-O (The Banana Boat Song) in the UK.

But his greatest achievement was as an advocate for black civil rights in the United States.

His spokesman, Ken Sunshine, said he died of congestive heart failure.

His wife, Pamela, was at his side.

Oprah Winfrey was among the first to pay tribute, and Belafonte was remembered as “a pioneer and a hero to us all.”

She continued, “Thank you for your music, your art, your activism, your fight for civil rights and justice.” “Your presence here on Earth has blessed us all.”

“We just have to thank God for having Harry Belafonte for 96 years,” said singer-songwriter John Legend, who considered Belafonte a friend and mentor.

“He used his show almost in a disruptive way, because he was just sneaking messages in there, revolutionary messages, when people thought he was just singing about the good times.”

He gave a lot, lived a lot [and] She helped us grow as a nation and as a world.”

Multi Million Seller

Belafonte, often called the King of Calypso, was born in Harlem, New York, in 1927, to poor immigrants from the Caribbean.

He dropped out of high school, and joined the Navy during World War II, working as an ammunition loader at a base in New Jersey.

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The star broke barriers in secluded America

After the war, he pursued his dream of becoming an actor, studying drama at Erwin Piscator’s famous Dramatic Workshop alongside the likes of Marlon Brando, Walter Matthau and Tony Curtis.

He paid for lessons by singing in New York clubs, where he was backed by groups including Miles Davis and Charlie Parker.

This led to a recording contract, and in his search for material, Belafonte began studying the Archives of Folk Songs at the United States Library of Congress, drawing on the calypso music his parents had been raised with.

It proved to be a wise move. The handsome young star sparked a fad for the genre with songs like Jamaica Farewell and Day-O (a song about Caribbean dock workers), both of which appeared on his third studio album, Calypso.

Released in 1956, it topped the Billboard charts and was said to be the first album by a solo artist to sell more than a million copies in the United States.

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The singer’s good figure has made him a modern idol

His success was him being the first black person to be allowed to perform in many of the elite venues in the United States—including some that were off-limits to artists like Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald.

His music has lasted into the streaming era — “Jump In The Line” (Shake Senora) has logged over 115 million plays, thanks to its use in the Tim Burton movie Beetlejuice.

As an actor, Belafonte made his Broadway debut in the John Murray Anderson musical Almanac in 1953, for which he won a Tony Award for Supporting Actor. Hollywood soon came, and he scored his first leading role in Island in the Sun, starring alongside James Mason, Joan Fontaine, and Joan Collins, with whom he was having an affair.

In 1957, he was described in Look magazine as the first black idol in entertainment history.

His accomplishments were most notable in an era when black actors were usually seen as maids and laborers, stereotypes he refused to conform to. In 1959, he famously turned down the musical Porgy and Bess, describing the lead role as demeaning.

He continued making movies into his eighties, making his final appearance in Spike Lee’s BlacKkKlansman.

In his musical career, he has recorded over 30 albums, including collaborative recordings with Nana Mouskouri, Lena Horne, and Miriam Makeba.

Bob Dylan even made his first appearance playing harmonica on Belafonte’s 1962 album, Midnight Special.

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The star was married three times, and left behind his wife, Pamela, as well as six children and eight grandchildren.

A close friend of Martin Luther King, the artist was a prominent and vocal supporter of the civil rights movement, which funded several anti-apartheid organizations, and was known to have gotten Dr. King and other activists out of jail.

He was one of the organizers of the 1963 March on Washington, and also participated in the Selma to Montgomery marches in 1965.

Dr. King once observed that Belafonte’s “global popularity and commitment to our cause is an essential component of the global struggle for freedom and a powerful tactical weapon in the civil rights movement.”

“We are fortunate for his courage and moral integrity.”

The star has also campaigned against poverty, apartheid and AIDS in Africa; And he became an ambassador for UNICEF, the United Nations Children’s Fund.

“a moral and caring man”

In 1985, he orchestrated the charity single We Are the World, an all-star musical collaboration that raised money for famine relief in Ethiopia.

After seeing a news report on the famine, artists rallied to raise money in the same way Bob Geldof and Midge Orr had done with Banmd Aid in the UK, a year earlier.

Featuring stars like Michael Jackson, Stevie Wonder, Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, Ray Charles, and Diana Ross, the song — written by Jackson and Lionel Richie — has grossed millions of dollars for charity.

“A lot of people say to me, ‘When you were an artist you decided to become an activist?'” Belafonte said in an interview with NPR in 2011. ” artist.'”

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Belafonte was awarded the Amnesty International Ambassador of Conscience Award in 2013

Even in his late 80s, Belafonte was still outspoken about equality of race and income and urged President Barack Obama to do more to help the poor.

He waged a fierce left-wing campaign against nuclear armament, and caused controversy in 2006 when, in a meeting with Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, he described US President George W. Bush as “the world’s greatest terrorist”.

Belafonte also compared Bush’s Secretaries of State Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice, both black, to slaves who worked in their master’s home rather than in the fields.

Statements like that made the star a frequent target of criticism, but he continued to be honored for his artistry and humanitarian work.

Among Belafonte’s many accolades, he was awarded the Kennedy Center Medal in 1989 and the National Medal of Arts in 1994. He was an EGOT – one of a rare group of people to have received all four major awards in entertainment, an Emmy Award, a Grammy and an Oscar and Tony.

Other stars paying tribute included rapper Ice Cube, who described the star as “more of a singer, more of an actor and more of a man.”

She added, “If we could be like Harry, what a wonderful world it could be.”

Martin Luther King’s daughter, Bernice, shared a photo of Belafonte at her father’s funeral, and shared her personal gratitude to the star.

When I was a child, Harry Belafonte showed up to my family in very sympathetic ways,” she wrote on Instagram.

“Indeed, he paid a babysitter for me and my brothers. Behold, he is in mourning with my mother at my father’s funeral at Morehouse College. I shall not forget. Rest well, sir.”

Belafonte has been married three times. He and his first wife, Margaret Beard, had two children, including model Shari Belafonte. He also had two children with his second wife, Julia Robinson, a former dancer.

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