District Superintendent’s Choice:

Personality featured for Black History Month

 Harold George Belafonte (Harry)

                   Born March 1, 1927, New York, N. Y.  African American singer, actor, producer and activist who has used his position as an entertainer to promote human rights worldwide.

                   Harry Belafonte may be best known to American audiences as the singer of the “Banana Boat song” (known properly as “Day-O”), but it is his commitment to political causes that inspired scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr.’s comment that “Harry Belafonte was radical long before it was chic and remained so long after it wasn’t.”

                   Harold George Belafonte was born in Harlem, New York to West Indian (Caribbean) parents. He spent the early years of his life growing up in Duncans, a rural Jamaican town and cared for by his grandmother and other relatives. He decided at an early age that his ambition was to become an entertainer.

                   He not only fulfilled his life’s ambition by becoming a dynamic entertainer but also a well-known actor, civil rights activist and goodwill ambassador in the world.

                   Belafonte’s performance as the only black member of the cast of “John Murray Anderson’s Almanac” earned him a Tony award in 1953.  A year later he starred with Dorothy Dandridge in “Carmen Jones,” a movie remake of Bizet’s opera that brought widespread attention to Belafonte’s sensual good looks.

                   His other early films include “Island in the Sun,” (1957) and “The World, the Flesh, and the Devil” (1959). In addition, for his work on “Tonight with Belafonte,” in 1960 he became the first African American to receive an Emmy Award.

                   As Belafonte began to achieve success as an actor, he stumbled into the singing career that made him one of the most popular entertainers of the late 1950’s. In 1949 a performance at an amateur night at the Royal Roost nightclub in New York led to an RCA recording contract.

                   Belafonte’s 1956 album “Calypso” became the first record to sell more than a million copies and started a craze for his husky voice and for the infectious rhythm of such songs as “Matilda,” “Brown Skin Girl,” and “Jamaica Farewell.”

                   Belafonte’s appeal to white audiences did not, however, protect him from racial segregation. As a result, he refused to perform in the Southern United States from 1954 to 1961, and he became deeply involved in the Civil Rights Movement.

                   In 1956 Belafonte met Martin Luther King, Jr. in Montgomery, Alabama, and they quickly became close friends. Belafonte was also a friend of Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy and frequently served as a liaison between King and policy makers in Washington, D.C.  Belafonte’s idea for a hit song “We are the World" generated more than 70 million dollars to fight famine in Ethiopia in 1985. Two years later he became the second American to be named UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador. A long time antiapartheid activist, Belafonte recorded an album of South African music, “Paradise in Gazankulu” in 1988 and chaired the welcoming committee for Nelsen Mandela’s visit to the United States in 1990.

                   Footnote:

                   Harry Belafonte is definitely one of my favorite persons. My wife and I had the good fortune to meet him in Santa Cruz when we were introduced to him at the home of The Reverend and Mrs. Darrel Darling where he was staying as their houseguest. I’ll always remember his words to me “When I heard that you came to the United States from The Bahamas I liked you, but now that I know you are from Jamaica, I love you.” Nice meeting you Harry – Jamaica mon.

Sources: “Africana Encyclopedia” and personal experience.

     San Jose District Superintendent