Harry Belafonte, born in Jamaica, became famous in the 1950s for his Caribbean-inspired music. His many other skills make him a well-known actor, singer, composer, and record producer.
Who is Harry Belafonte?
In 1927, Belafonte was born in Harlem, New York City, and grew up in Jamaica. As a result of his work, Caribbean music began to gain popularity outside of the tropics. The Banana Boat Song, or Day-O!, is a song that many fans recognize him for. The song is a Jamaican call-and-response from Belafonte’s stay in Kingston. The song sings, “Daylight comes, and we want to go home, so we work all night on a drink of rum.”
The first album to sell over a million copies in a year, Calypso made him a household star with this song and others on the album.
Harry Belafonte Movies
The actor and producer Harry Belafonte appeared in and produced several blockbuster films. His first starring appearance was in the 1953 picture “Bright Road” with Dorothy Dandridge. Buck and the Preacher in 1972, and Uptown Saturday Night, in 1974 were the last two films he appeared in alongside Dandridge. Belafonte won an Emmy for his first solo TV show, Tonight with Belafonte, in 1959. In John Murray Anderson’s Almanac, Belafonte became the first black actor to receive a Tony Award for his performance. In “White Man’s Burden,” Belafonte teamed up with John Travolta in the 1990s.
For Robert Altman’s film, Kansas City, he was cast as well. The role of an elderly civil rights pioneer in Spike Lee’s 2018 film BlacKkKlansman was his most recent screen appearance.
What Organizations Has Belafonte Supported?
As a longtime activist, Belafonte has never wavered. He discusses this extensively in his book, My Song, which was converted into a documentary film in 2011. When he befriended Martin Luther King, Jr., his advocacy peaked during the Civil Rights Movement. King’s book claims that Belafonte gathered money to free him and many others who were imprisoned during the Birmingham campaigns of 1963. The March on Washington in 1963, which he helped organize, was made possible partly by his support for voter registration operations. One of Belafonte’s many charitable projects is We Are the World, a campaign to raise money for Africa that won a Grammy in 1985.
HIV/AIDS research and the fight against it in South Africa have significantly benefited from his backing. Aside from being the Honorary Co-Chair of the Women’s March on Washington in 2017, he was also a Grand Marshal of the New York City Pride Parade in 2013.
