Mr. B.
I knew pathetically little about the life and story of Harry Belafonte, who recently passed age 96. My first assignment in the "Rabbit Hole"? Do something to fix that.
It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, but I found that I knew very little about the recently passed Harry Belafonte. Actually, pretty disappointed in myself about that.
I remember him from a couple of different points as a kid. First, of course, would be the Muppet Show. Because if one of my parents didn’t own a record (or an 8 track) of someone, then I heard of them from watching the Muppet Show. And my mom thought it was a bad influence on me…you throw kitchen utensils around like the Swedish Chef one time. Or pretend like you are Animal on the drums another time. Or try a Miss Piggy karate chop. Or flip out like Beaker…oh never mind.
Later in childhood my mom actually got a Belafonte album, and of course I knew Day-O, who didn’t? Beetlejuice anyone? But as a kid I used to laugh every time I heard “Mama Look a Boo Boo”. I thought it was funny when he would say “Shut up your mouth”. (Confession: It took me quite a while and a couple of rabbit holes of “what the hell is the name of that shut up song?”)
A little later, I remembered him being part of “We Are the World”…but of course who wasn’t? He was in the background mostly but still quite recognizable.
So yeah, that was my knowledge. That’s unacceptable, so here I am doing something about it. Or at least trying.
The man did some stuff simply as a musician. He’s the first to sell one million copies of an album. It may seem like it’s a thing that happens all the time but even now so, so few even get to that stratosphere. And with Calypso, he created the stratosphere.
Now if he had just said, “yeah, this is pretty good” and called it a day, this plus what little I did already know would in and of itself be quite impressive. Honestly, if I ever got to hang out with the Muppets for a day, I’d consider life to be complete and mastered. But that’s just me.
I’m certainly not Harry Belafonte, known personally by many as “Mr. B”.
He lived an extraordinary young life. Born in Harlem, spent a considerable portion of his childhood in Jamaica, where he clearly learned some stuff that would become part of who he would become going forward. Returning to NYC as a teen, he struggled with school and eventually enlisted in the U.S. Navy. He was assigned to Port Chicago, California, serving as a munitions assistant. Prior to his deployment, a massive explosion ripped through the base, killing over 300, over 2/3 were black in a still mostly segregated military during World War II. As a result, black sailors refused to work under the continued unsafe (primarily as a result of segregation) conditions that had led to the disaster. Over 50 of the sailors involved in the mutiny were jailed and many were incarcerated until after the war ended.
"It was the worst homefront disaster of World War II, but almost no one knows about it or what followed," he said.
"The Port Chicago mutiny was one of America's ugliest miscarriages of justice, the largest mass trial in naval history, and a national disgrace," Belafonte said. He credited television producer Ted Turner and his staff with having the courage to put the story on television.
Belafonte served less than two years, and upon his honorable discharge returned to New York and worked as a janitorial assistant. As a gratuity, he received a complematary ticket to a performance of a community theater in Harlem, after which he was driven to become a performer. He used the G.I. Bill to enroll in the Dramatic Workshop of the New School of Social Research where he would join classmates Marlon Brando, Walter Matthau, Tony Curtis, Bea Arthur, and the man who would become a close friend and fellow rabble-rouser, the legendary Sidney Poitier. Belafonte performed in the jazz circuit in New York, where he was regularly backed by such jazz legends as Max Roach and Charlie Parker.
Talk about an education, and a catapult into a hell of a career. In addition to being the first to a million-selling album, Belafonte was a recipient of many awards. In fact, he is in that rarified air of having completed the EGOT. The Tony Award came first in 1954, winning Best Actor (Featured Role-Musical) for John Murray Anderson's Almanac. The Emmy Award came next in 1960, for Outstanding Performance in a Variety or Musical Program or Series for “Tonight with Belafonte” (the first Emmy win by a black man). The first of two Grammys came the next year, winning Best Performance- Folk for "Swing Dat Hammer” (the second came in 1966, sharing Best Folk Recording with Miriam Makeba for "An Evening With Belafonte/Makeba". When we received the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 2015, the Oscar he received completed the EGOT.
So yeah, a hell of a career, but you can’t explore this guy’s career and brush past his social justice work. It was ingrained in so much of his work, and for as many accolades as he received, he also caught a whole lot of shit as well. He made a LOT of people uncomfortable, he stuck by people and beliefs if he believed in them and to hell with what anyone else thought, or what danger it may have brought his way.
Know that his primary mentor was Paul Robeson, a well known singer, actor, former football player, and extremely leftist voice in the first half of the 20th century. His reward for all of that was to have his career destroyed thanks to the likes of professional witch hunter and all around pile of garbage Sen. Joe McCarthy, under the guise of weeding out the “Communists” (This guy-McCarthy, not Robeson-is a big reason why so many in the west know they hate communism, socialism, Marxism, etc., despite having absolutely no idea what the hell any of these things even mean. But that’s a story for another day). He was the one that truly inspired Belafonte to bring his beliefs and passion for equity and justice with him into his creative work. From a piece by Monica Moorehead for Workers World:
Belafonte was inspired personally and politically by the great singer and radical actor, Paul Robeson, who was a victim of the anti-communist, McCarthyite witch hunt that all but destroyed his livelihood.
In a speech before the Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade/Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archives meeting in New York City on April 27, 1997, Belafonte, a survivor of the witch hunt, stated, “And it was from Paul that I learned that the purpose of art is not just to show life as it is, but to show life as it should be. And that if art were put into the service of the human family, it could only enhance their betterment.
“Paul said to me, ‘Harry, get them to sing your song, and they will want to know who you are. And if they want to know who you are, you’ve gained the first step in bringing truth and bringing insight that might help people get through this rather difficult world.’”
Listen to the lyrics of Day-O. This isn’t just a fun thing to scream at a ballgame. It’s the story of workers in Jamaica picking bananas, and the shitty work and conditions they dealt with just to make enough to survive. Seriously, his songs were all stories of those whose voices just are not heard enough. Not all that much different these days, either.
As I said, he was not afraid to piss people off with his work. He starred in a movie, “Island in the Sun”, that pissed off a whole lot of people for all the right reasons. In 1957, he played the role of a Black union leader on a fictional West Indian Island who was romantically involved with a young Bourgeois white woman. It went over about as well as one would expect in that time.
Harry Belafonte was not some “Hollywood elite” that said some stuff, threw some money at a cause, and then went on with his day. He was VERY involved in the Civil Rights movement. He was very close to Dr. King and his family, so close that after his assassination he served as the executor of his estate. Dr. King wasn’t making a whole lot as a preacher, so there were a lot of financial needs that Belafonte was able to help cover, from travel to bail.
He wasn’t just the “money man”, he put himself right in the middle of danger at times to support the movement. James Fell, the creator of the excellent Substack blog Sweary History (like I wouldn’t enjoy something called Sweary History?), shared this anecdote which I’ll share directly (link below in the resource notes):
Belafonte was well known for using his wealth to bankroll both Dr. King and the civil rights movement. He hired a little Cessna to fly himself and (Sidney) Poitier into a small airport near Greenwood, bringing with them $70,000 in cash.
The moment they landed the pilot, knowing how dangerous the situation was, said it’s fuckity bye time and wheels up noped right out of there God be with you best of luck. A car was waiting for the pair. They climbed in and saw headlights across the airfield. Harry said those must be federal agents. The driver said yeah no. That’s the Klan. They wanna kill us.
Rather than immediately flee, the driver charged his vehicle straight at the KKK to create confusion, then swerved away toward Greenwood. The Klan gave chase. During the car chase vehicles repeatedly rammed the car with Belafonte and Poitier in the back seat, attempting to push it off the road, but the driver kept ahead of them. Eventually a convoy of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, one of the four civil rights organizations running the Freedom Summer, drove out to meet the vehicle carrying the famous pair. The pursuing clown cars—oops I mean Klan cars—gave up the chase.
Yeah. This guy had some brass ones to go and willingly take on the belly of the beast and get the job done.
He was involved in so much around the world as well. One of his areas of focus was in Africa. He was very involved in the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa and played a big role in Nelson Mandela’s release from jail. He was very pivotal in starting the wheels rolling for what became one of the largest and most impactful musical collaborations ever, USA for Africa and the iconic single “We Are the World”. Being tuned in to what was happening with the massive famines in war-torn Ethiopia, Belafonte got manager Ken Kragen involved, who in turn brought in Quincy Jones, Michael Jackson, and Lionel Richie involved and the rest is history.
If I kept digging, there would be so much more, I’ve learned so much and man, this guy lived, and he loved, and he brought so much to so many.
There is one more accomplishment that I need to at least acknowledge, that would never have dawned on me, because privilege. The incredible writer and author Frederick Joseph shared a piece (link below in the resource notes) and the premise is that his biggest accomplishment may well have been surviving to age 96. That stopped me in my tracks, and it needs to be thought about. But please read his piece because you need to hear it in his voice and his words, and I cannot fairly do any of that justice (also, buy Patriarchy Blues and read it and share it. Some bigots want to ban it, which means more of us need to buy it, read it, and share it because fuck bigots).
One last invite I’ll leave with you is to check out Belafonte’s legacy foundation, Sankofa, which now is in the hands of his daughter Gina. To quote the website directly,
“Sankofa.org educates, motivates, and activates artists and allies in service of grassroots movements and equitable change.”
This was a fun dive into this man’s life and legacy, and I hope you learned a little something like I did and feel inspired from this little journey. I’ll leave you with one final nugget on the way out, again from Workers World. He was asked specifically in this why he was supportive of the people of Cuba, but this could apply all over Harry Belafonte’s life, legend, and legacy:
“I don’t see it as a supreme effort. It is a way of life: if you believe in freedom, if you believe in justice, if you believe in democracy, if you believe in people’s rights, if you believe in the harmony of all humanity.”
Resources
David Vergun, “'King of Calypso' Harry Belafonte Was WWII Sailor”, D.O.D. News, posted Feb. 2, 2022. https://www.defense.gov/News/Feature-Stories/story/Article/2913091/king-of-calypso-harry-belafonte-was-wwii-sailor/
Frederick Joseph, “In Praise of Growing Old and Black: How Harry Belafonte’s Long Life Gives Us Hope”, In Retrospect, posted April 26, 2023.
James Fell, “SH!T WENT DOWN: Harry Belafonte and the Freedom Summer Flight”, Sweary History with James Fell, posted April 30, 2023.
Monica Moorehead, et al, “Harry Belafonte was more than a Civil Rights activist but a genuine internationalist”, Workers World, posted May 1, 2023. https://www.workers.org/2023/05/70668/
National Parks Service, International Civil Rights Hall of Fame: Harold George “Harry” Belafonte, Jr. https://www.nps.gov/features/malu/feat0002/wof/Harold_Belafonte.htm
Sankofa web site https://sankofa.org/