Death of a gatekeeper of truth: Harry Belafonte, activist and entertainer, passes away at 96

By Associated Press

NEW YORK: Harry Belafonte, the civil rights and leisure giant who began as a groundbreaking actor and singer and have turn out to be an activist, humanitarian and conscience of the world, has died. He was 96.

Belafonte died Tuesday of congestive coronary coronary heart failure at his New York dwelling, his partner Pamela by his facet, acknowledged Ken Sunshine, of public relations company Sunshine Sachs Morgan & Lylis.

With his glowing, handsome face and silky-husky voice, Belafonte was one in every of many first Black performers to realize a big following on film and to advertise a million information as a singer; many nonetheless know him for his signature hit “Banana Boat Song (Day-O),” and its identify of “Day-O! Daaaaay-O.” But he stable a bigger legacy as quickly as he scaled once more his performing occupation inside the Sixties and lived out his hero Paul Robeson’s decree that artists are “gatekeepers of truth.”

He stands as a result of the model and the epitome of the film star activist. Few saved up with Belafonte’s time and dedication and none his stature as a gathering stage amongst Hollywood, Washington and the civil rights movement.

Belafonte not solely participated in protest marches and revenue live performance occasions, nevertheless helped arrange and carry assist for them. He labored rigorously collectively together with his pal and generational peer the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., usually intervening on his behalf with every politicians and fellow entertainers and serving to him financially. He risked his life and livelihood and set extreme necessities for youthful Black celebrities, scolding Jay Z and Beyonce for failing to meet their “social responsibilities,” and mentoring Usher, Common, Danny Glover and loads of others. In Spike Lee’s 2018 film “BlacKkKlansman,” he was fittingly solid as an elder statesman schooling youthful activists regarding the nation’s earlier.

Belafonte’s pal, civil rights chief Andrew Young, would remember that Belafonte was the unusual explicit individual to develop additional radical with age. He was ever engaged and unyielding, ready to deal with Southern segregationists, Northern liberals, the billionaire Koch brothers and the nation’s first Black president, Barack Obama, whom Belafonte would keep in mind asking to cut him “some slack.”

Belafonte responded, “What makes you think that’s not what I’ve been doing?”

May Harry Belafonte, the lionhearted civil rights hero, rest in peace. He impressed generations spherical all the world inside the battle for non-violent resistance justice and alter. We need his occasion now better than ever. pic.twitter.com/oBTBBvx3ra

— Christiane Amanpour (@amanpour) April 25, 2023

Belafonte had been a major artist given that Nineteen Fifties. He obtained a Tony Award in 1954 for his starring perform in John Murray Anderson’s “Almanac” and 5 years later grew to turn out to be the first Black performer to win an Emmy for the TV explicit “Tonight with Harry Belafonte.”

In 1954, he co-starred with Dorothy Dandridge inside the Otto Preminger-directed musical “Carmen Jones,” a popular breakthrough for an all-Black solid. The 1957 movie “Island in the Sun” was banned in a lot of Southern cities, the place theater householders had been threatened by the Ku Klux Klan because of the film’s interracial romance between Belafonte and Joan Fontaine.

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NEW YORK: Harry Belafonte, the civil rights and leisure giant who began as a groundbreaking actor and singer and have turn out to be an activist, humanitarian and conscience of the world, has died. He was 96.

Belafonte died Tuesday of congestive coronary coronary heart failure at his New York dwelling, his partner Pamela by his facet, acknowledged Ken Sunshine, of public relations company Sunshine Sachs Morgan & Lylis.

With his glowing, handsome face and silky-husky voice, Belafonte was one in every of many first Black performers to realize a big following on film and to advertise a million information as a singer; many nonetheless know him for his signature hit “Banana Boat Song (Day-O),” and its identify of “Day-O! Daaaaay-O.” But he stable a bigger legacy as quickly as he scaled once more his performing occupation inside the Sixties and lived out his hero Paul Robeson’s decree that artists are “gatekeepers of truth.”googletag.cmd.push(function() googletag.present(‘div-gpt-ad-8052921-2’); );

He stands as a result of the model and the epitome of the film star activist. Few saved up with Belafonte’s time and dedication and none his stature as a gathering stage amongst Hollywood, Washington and the civil rights movement.

Belafonte not solely participated in protest marches and revenue live performance occasions, nevertheless helped arrange and carry assist for them. He labored rigorously collectively together with his pal and generational peer the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., usually intervening on his behalf with every politicians and fellow entertainers and serving to him financially. He risked his life and livelihood and set extreme necessities for youthful Black celebrities, scolding Jay Z and Beyonce for failing to meet their “social responsibilities,” and mentoring Usher, Common, Danny Glover and loads of others. In Spike Lee’s 2018 film “BlacKkKlansman,” he was fittingly solid as an elder statesman schooling youthful activists regarding the nation’s earlier.

Belafonte’s pal, civil rights chief Andrew Young, would remember that Belafonte was the unusual explicit individual to develop additional radical with age. He was ever engaged and unyielding, ready to deal with Southern segregationists, Northern liberals, the billionaire Koch brothers and the nation’s first Black president, Barack Obama, whom Belafonte would keep in mind asking to cut him “some slack.”

Belafonte responded, “What makes you think that’s not what I’ve been doing?”

May Harry Belafonte, the lionhearted civil rights hero, rest in peace. He impressed generations spherical all the world inside the battle for non-violent resistance justice and alter. We need his occasion now better than ever. pic.twitter.com/oBTBBvx3ra
— Christiane Amanpour (@amanpour) April 25, 2023
Belafonte had been a major artist given that Nineteen Fifties. He obtained a Tony Award in 1954 for his starring perform in John Murray Anderson’s “Almanac” and 5 years later grew to turn out to be the first Black performer to win an Emmy for the TV explicit “Tonight with Harry Belafonte.”

In 1954, he co-starred with Dorothy Dandridge inside the Otto Preminger-directed musical “Carmen Jones,” a popular breakthrough for an all-Black solid. The 1957 movie “Island in the Sun” was banned in a lot of Southern cities, the place theater householders had been threatened by the Ku Klux Klan because of the film’s interracial romance between Belafonte and Joan Fontaine.

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