Born on March 1, 1927, to Caribbean mother and father in Harlem, New York, Belafonte was one of many largest leisure stars of the twentieth century, leaving his mark in music, movie, and civil rights activism. He got here of age in a racially segregated United States which nonetheless had an arts and tradition scene dominated by white folks. Black musicians like Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday and Duke Ellington had all made a mark by the point he burst on the scene within the Fifties, but it surely was his distinctive Trinidadian-influenced songs that drove his profession to record-breaking gross sales. His third album, Calypso (1956), turned the primary album ever to promote 1,000,000 information.

By the age of 17, Belafonte had dropped out of highschool and joined the Navy. There, his shipmates launched him to the works of sociologist William Edward Burghardt Du Bois, which led to a political awakening. He championed civil rights causes after being discharged from service and have become a detailed pal of Sidney Poitier, the primary Black man to win an Oscar for Best Actor. He explored theatre, rejected roles that stereotyped African-American folks, and debuted on Broadway as a supporting actor within the musical John Murray Anderson’s Almanac in 1953 — for which he received a Tony. He acquired his first lead function in Robert Rossen’s 1957 drama Island within the Sun. Eager to broaden his oeuvre and get away of ‘Uncle Tom’ performing roles, he sang throughout intermissions at a Midtown jazz membership. He proved overqualified for the two-week gig owing to a strong, husky, and managed voice — he went on to sing there for 5 months. He went on to be an EGOT — somebody who’s received all 4 main leisure awards, an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar and a Tony.

One of the songs he wrote and carried out in Island within the Sun, of the identical title, acquired well-known. Other songs like Jamaica Farewell and Mary’s Boy Child had been big hits too, and he was the highest-paid Black performer within the US by 1959. But he was denounced in Trinidad, the place he drew a whole lot of musical affect from. His folks music wasn’t thought of genuine to Caribbean traditions. In response, he mentioned to The New York Times in 1959, “Purism is the best cover-up for mediocrity. If there is no change we might just as well go back to the first ‘ugh,’ which must have been the first song.”

He was a detailed pal of activist Martin Luther King Junior and eagerly participated within the civil rights motion of the Sixties. He would usually bail younger black activists out of jail and criticise celebrities who he felt weren’t doing sufficient for the trigger. In the Nineteen Eighties, he helped organise a cultural boycott of South Africa for its apartheid insurance policies, in addition to the vastly common ‘We Are The World’ recording which included Michael Jackson, Stevie Wonder, Bruce Springsteen, and Bob Dylan. His ardour for African-American upliftment within the polity continued to previous age, whereby he known as the billionaire industrialist Koch brothers “white supremacists” in 2012 and rallied in opposition to the election of Donald Trump in 2016. He was unsparing to sympathetic public figures too: he urged former president Barack Obama to advocate higher pro-poor insurance policies.

Tributes poured in when he died. Oprah Winfrey reportedly mentioned, “Thank you for your music, your artistry, your activism, your fight for civil rights and justice. Your being here on Earth has blessed us all. We just have to thank God that we had Harry Belafonte for 96 years.” Singer John Legend reportedly mentioned, “He used his platform in almost a subversive way because he would sneak messages in there, revolutionary messages, when people thought he was just singing about good times.” Obama tweeted, “Harry Belafonte was a barrier-breaking legend who used his platform to lift others up. He lived a good life – transforming the arts while also standing up for civil rights. And he did it all with his signature smile and style.”