The New Yorker Radio Hour - Harry Belafonte, the Pioneering Artist-Activist

Episode Date: April 30, 2023

We take it for granted that entertainers can—and probably should—advocate for the causes they believe in, political and otherwise. That wasn’t always the case: at one time, entertainers were supposed to entertain, and little else. Harry Belafonte, who died on April 25th at the age of ninety-six, pioneered the artist-activist approach. One of the most celebrated singers of his era, he had a string of huge hits—“The Banana Boat Song,” “Mama Look a Boo Boo,” “Jamaica Farewell”—while appearing as the rare Black leading man in the movies. At the same time, Belafonte used his platform to influence public opinion. He was a key figure in the civil-rights movement, a confidant of Martin Luther King’s; a generation later, he worked with Nelson Mandela to help bring down apartheid in South Africa. Belafonte joined The New Yorker Radio Hour in 2016, when the staff writer Jelani Cobb visited him at his office in Manhattan. This segment originally aired September 30, 2016.  New Yorker Radio Hour listeners, we want to hear from you.  We have a few questions about the show and how you listen to it. The survey takes about twenty minutes, and your feedback will help us make our podcast better.  Take the survey here.

This is The New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker. This is The New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. We take it for granted today that entertainers can and maybe should speak out for the causes they believe in, political and otherwise. That certainly wasn't the case in the past, but there was a great pioneer in this, the artist, activist Harry Belafonte, and he just died at the age of 96. One of the great entertainers of his era, Belafonte, had a long string of hits, the Banana Boat song, Jump in the Line, Jamaica Farewell. Down the way where the nights are gay and the sun shines daily on the mountain top. I took a trip on a sailing ship, and when I reached Jamaica, I made a stop, but I'm sad to say. As well as a career as a leading man in the movies.

But at the same time, Belafonte was a key figure in the civil rights movement, a friend and confidant of Martin Luther King Jr. And a generation later, he worked with Nelson Mandela to help bring down apartheid. In 2016, the New Yorkers Jolani Cobb went to pay him a visit at his office in Midtown Manhattan. At the age of 90, Belafonte was still at work with his team, planning the details of an upcoming festival. So Mr. Belafonte's office is like an archive. You know, when you walk in, there are his gold records that are on the wall,

and then there are posters from some of his films, and you kind of walk through his biography by looking at what's on the walls. When we got there, we talked for a moment with his daughter. She's really heavily involved in working out logistical details for the festival. Now it's just a matter of, you know, pushing our ticket sales and having bodies on the ground. We were waiting for Mr. Belafonte to arrive. And some people walk into a room and some people make an entrance. Let me rush through this verbiage to just express my regrets.

And at 89 years old, Harry Belafonte still makes an entrance. I jokingly told him that a friend of mine, when I, mentioned that I was going to be talking to him. I asked her if there's anything that I should ask him for her. And she said, yes, ask him if I can have his phone number. And this is someone who was in her 30s. He now walks with a cane and he's thinner than he has been, you know, in earlier points of his life. But there's still something really very dignified about him. Sir, it's good to see you. I've got to tell you something. I've discovered it's nice to see anybody.

You know, with Belafonte, it's like picking up an encyclopedia and flipping through the pages. There's so much information there and there's so much lived experience. Like the fact that he owned a burger joint in the village at some point in his career when he was convinced that he wouldn't make it as an actor. Yeah. Didn't own it long because he went bankrupt. I didn't charge enough for the hamburger. And most of the people who came to eat in the restaurant were all my friends, acting students, who also broke and said, I'll pay you when I get from my next gig.

Well, I got to draw full of next gigs. No money. When you talk to him, he kind of grounds his sense of identity and everything he is. And being the child of two very hardworking, but nonetheless disadvantaged. West Indian immigrants. That's a young person watching my mother goes to the dignities of poverty. She came home too often, a broken person.

She stood in line down onto the L on 3rd Avenue to get day work. And is in Harlem? Yeah. Something you said it was really interesting, I thought, which is that you said, people think of you as an artist who became an activist,

but you think of yourself as an activist who became an artist. Yes, that's exactly correct. When people say, when did you become an activist? I just said, well, I don't know how you can ask citizens of color who are born into poverty. When did you become an activist? You really become an activist the day you're born, because your whole lust and thrust and effort is to get out of poverty.

and that requires a lot of work. One of the more notable things, I think, was the story he told about going to Mississippi with Sidney Portier to bring $100,000 to civil rights activists there. You know, Sydney Poitier is, of course, the great African-American actor and Harry Belafonte's oldest friend.

I call Sidney Poitier, which I'd been in the habit of doing, for us to go for fun and use. games. So he thought this was that kind of call. So when I called him, he said, and I said, I got to go down to Greenwood, Mississippi. And it was this long pause. Pallafati, what are you going to Greenwood Mississippi for? And I spelt it out. And so on the face of it, it sounds absurd. These are two of the most recognizable figures in Hollywood in American culture at this point. And they,

They're trying to organize a clandestine trip to Mississippi to funnel money to a civil rights organization that can't get it any other way. When we got to Greenwood, it was one of the darkest nights that I've ever remembered seeing no electricity at all in this little dirt airport. And just at that moment, in a circle around the airfield, these lights went up. And in the distance there were cars. And I was with a guy named Willie Blue. I had said to Sydney, I think those are the feds. And Willie Blue said, feds my ass. That's the clan.

Wow. I looked at Sidney, and he was not very, he was not in a humorous mood. It's just really kind of amazing story. And kind of the dynamics between the two of them and driving around in the middle of night and being concerned that the clan is going to come get them. And it's funny, but it's also. poignant and at 89 years old is very easy to just talk about life in the past tense.

But I think the other reason why I wanted to talk to Mr. Belafonte was the fact that he is so deeply enmeshed in things that are contemporary and current. He's not talking about things that happened in 1966, except as a means of shedding light on what happens in 2016. Have you been surprised or dismayed by anything that's happened in our current politics that makes this moment particularly important? Yes. What really stuns me is the absence of black presence in the face of the kind of animus that's being heaved upon us to gerrymandered voting districts. to change the voting zones, to close down privileges that are given to workers who, Sundays and weekends, to be able to vote. This onslaught is all about race, and there is no real substantial voice coming out of the Black movement.

Our organizations are fallow. Where is SNCC? Where is SCLC? the NACP, it is the absence of black consciousness and black response to these things that I think that has ennobled people like emboldened them like Well, Black Lives Matter, I presume.

Well, Black Lives Matters is something we created but I'm thinking the Donald Trumps of the world. Where's the black voice? Where's the black Congress? Where are the committees? Not individuals, but where's the collective? We don't have a labor movement like we had when we did the march on Washington. Because labor movement, by and large, belly up.

There is no labor movement in this country. There's a labor struggle, but there's no labor movement. We have no peace movement. What do you see the difference between those two things, the labor struggle and a labor movement? A movement, I think, is an organized body. with purpose, with declared targets, with clarity of philosophy, with an ideology. A struggle is when somebody slaps you and you try to cover yourself from the blow. There is no underbelly.

There's no grit. There's no challenge. And we certainly don't have the political leadership. It's not in the White House. It's not in the Congress. I kind of welcome this. Mr. Belafonte was trying to orient himself. I think, in time and in a kind of activist space.

He began talking about what he saw as the failures of organizations that were led by his contemporaries and that they left a void that had to be filled by other groups. And I think he was implying that the rise of things like Black Lives Matter was as a result of, you know, I think it's probably not too harsh to say, other people dropping the baton. There is no voice that stands strong. in leading some mighty response, some righteous response to what's going on.

I think it's important to recognize also the reverence that a lot of younger people have for Belafonte. You know, John Legend certainly is one of those people. And various voices and elements of Black Lives Matter that have been in dialogue with him. There is a cadre of younger artistic and activist people who see in Belafonte kind of a mentor figure, kind of one of the last vital links to the civil rights movement that much of this work is still inspired by. And I'm not sure there's anyone else who quite occupies that niche. When I listen to young people like Jesse Williams, when I listen to, John Legend

step in and speak out I feel rewarded that somewhere along the line these are the dividends for what we invested all my colleagues were now dead and gone because

I now understand that I'm officially at the end I don't want to do it anymore it was jarring to see him talk about the fact that we all have a finite amount of time here. And he's thinking very much about what it is that he's done.

I am going to spend the rest of my days perhaps being more radical than I ever thought I would ever be, saying things that are more radical, because I no longer want to lead anything or be. I just want to say the truth and what to. it is. There's a lot of stuff to be said. Where I go with it, I don't know, but I'll be knocking at your door. I'm always eager to talk to you, Mr. Belafonte. Okay. My heart is down. My head is turning around. I had to leave a little girl in Kingston town. The late Harry Belafonte. He spoke with the New Yorker's Jolani Cobb in 2016. That's the radio hour for today. See you next time.

The new yorker Radio Hour is a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker. Our theme music was composed and performed by Merrill Garbess of Tune Arts. The New Yorker Radio Hour is supported in part by the Cherina Endowment Fund. My heart is down. My head is turning around. I had to leave a little girl in Kingston town.