Harry Belafonte dead at 96ExBulletin

A 1976 portrait of singer, actor and activist Harry Belafonte. He died Tuesday at age 96.

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AFP/Getty Images

A 1976 portrait of singer, actor and activist Harry Belafonte. He died Tuesday at age 96.

AFP/Getty Images

Singer, actor and human rights activist Harry Belafonte died on Tuesday aged 96 from congestive heart failure. He broke racial barriers and balanced his activism with his artistry in a way that had people around the world listen. Belafonte, who held EGOT for his Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony awards, has died at his New York home, his publicist has announced.

Style, class and charisma: that was Harry Belafonte as a performer. In the 1950s, his recordings for RCA Victor, which included his iconic version of the Jamaican folk song “Day-O” (also known as “The Banana Boat Song”) sparked a craze for calypso music. With his good looks and shirt unbuttoned across his chest, black and white audiences adored Belafonte at a time when most of America was still segregated.

Belafonte was born in Harlem. His parents were from the Caribbean; his mother was Jamaican and his father was from the island of Martinique. His mother, a cleaning lady, brings him back to his native Jamaica, where he immerses himself in the culture of the island.

The singer told NPR in 2011 that his recording of “The Banana Boat Song” was inspired by vendors he heard singing on the streets.

“The song is a work song,” he said. “It’s about men who sweat all day long and are underpaid. They beg the tallyman to come and give them an honest account: ‘Count the bananas I picked so that I get paid. ‘ When people sing with delight and dance and enjoy it, they don’t Really understand unless they study the song they sing a work song which is a song of rebellion.”

And that rebellion song was a hit. The Scrapbook Calypso was a best-seller, holding a place at the top of Billboard’s then newly created album charts for several weeks in 1956.

Years earlier, Harry Belafonte dropped out of high school and joined the Navy. After serving in World War II, he was working as a janitor’s assistant when someone gave him tickets to a show at the American Negro Theater. He was riveted.

He began training there, alongside Sidney Poitier and Ruby Dee. He also started singing in clubs. Very quickly, he landed a recording contract.

In 1954, he won a Tony Award for a review entitled “John Murray Anderson’s Almanac: A Musical Harlequinade.” He acted in films and appeared in television variety shows. In 1959, he received an hour-long program on CBS. Called Revlon Revue: Tonight with Belafonte, the program had dance numbers, folk songs, and black and white performers. The program won an Emmy Award, the first for an African American.

Revlon asked him for more shows. According to Belafonte, CBS stations in the South complained about its integrated distribution. In interviews, he said he was asked to make it all black. He says he refused and left the show.

Belafonte was one of Dr Martin Luther King Jr’s most trusted friends. In 1963 he helped organize the Freedom March on Washington, where King delivered his “I Have A Dream” speech.

Clarence Jones, who helped write this speech, told NPR Fresh air in 2011 that it was Belafonte who explained to them how to use the power of television. “He said,” Jones recalled, “‘You have to look at this as a media event, not just a march.’ And so, for example, Harry was in charge of putting together what was called the “celebrity delegation”, a large number of Hollywood celebrities and entertainers, and he was very firm that they had to to sit in a certain strategic part of the podium, because he knew the TV cameras would be panning over them, looking at them, so he wanted to be sure that they were strategically located, so that when looking at the celebrities, they would also see an image of the march and other performers.”

When Dr King was held in a Birmingham jail, Belafonte raised money to bail him out. Coretta Scott King wrote in her autobiography, “Whenever we were in trouble or when tragedy struck, Harry always came to our aid, his generous heart open wide.”

His relationship with the King family then became rocky after Belafonte filed a lawsuit trial against King’s estate in 2013 over the fate of three documents the civil rights leader gave him that Belafonte attempted to auction to fund nonprofits; the family claimed the singer and actor “wrongly acquired” the documents. Belafonte and the estate installed out of court the following year, with Belafonte retaining the materials.

Throughout his career, Belafonte has received numerous accolades for his humanitarian and artistic work. He also helped organize Nelson Mandela’s first trip to the United States after his release from prison.

He was also a vocal critic of those in power, including President Barack Obama, whom he once had chastised for not caring enough about the poor. He chose African-American artists Jay-Z and Beyonce, telling an interviewer that they had “turned their backs on social responsibility”. Jay-Z responded on his track “Nickels and Dimes”: “Mr. Day-O, major failure.” The two men end up compound.

Harry Belafonte was an activist until his 90s. He told NPR in 2011 that it was something he learned from his mother.

“She wanted her dignity not to be shattered. And one day she told me she was talking about coming back from a day when she couldn’t find a job. Holding back tears, she said, ‘Don’t never let injustice go unchallenged.'”

As his good friend Sidney Poitier once said, Belafonte was an “invaluable energy force” and “always a bold guy”.

Harry Belafonte is survived by his wife, Pamela Frank; four children; two stepchildren; and eight grandchildren.

Edited by: Anastasia Tsioulcas

Audio story edited by: Rose Friedman

Audio story produced by: Kelli Wessinger