Harry Belafonte: A Biography Of Harry Bellanfanti Jr.

Have you ever been oppressed for something? Have people ever been so childish as to judge you for the things you cannot change, like the color of your skin for say? If so, then you know what it was like to be black from 1877 to 1964! Sounds great right?

Not many people opposed the segregation laws because the only people who saw it as wrong were the people who were directly affected by said laws. Those people were the African Americans. Though not much progress was being made, there were some people who took a stand against the racist orders. One of those people being Harry Belafonte. Most notable for being a great musician, he was also a great activist. He combined the art of music with the power of activism and protest, but more about that
in Harlem, New York City. While in New york City, he lived in poverty and struggled with family issues. His mother sent him to live in Jamaica, which is where she was born, when he was still a young child, but at the eruption of WWII he returned to Harlem as a teenager. In 1944 he enlisted in the Navy and was later discharged, which returned him to NYC.

He was working as a janitor’s assistant when he first attended a show at the American Music Theater (AMT) thus sparking an interest in theatre. He began working at the AMT as a stagehand and he ultimately became part of the stage. He studied his ability in the Dramatic Workshop where some of his fellow peers included Marlon Brando, Tony Curtis, Rod Steiger, and Walter Matthau.

In 1954 his musical métier began when he started working as a club singer to pay for his growing acting profession. His career as a musician soared when he appeared in the musical Carmen Jones, soon making billboard hits with songs like “Banana Boat Song” and “Jump In The Line”. He wasn’t just a musician, he was an activist and was inspired by many personalities such as Paul Robeson, W.E.B Du Bois and Martin Luther King Jr., who he later became close friends
Harry fought for Nelson Mandela’s release from the tyrannical South African government, as he was good friends with him and it just goes to show that Belafonte was ready and willing to do anything to fight injustice. In the 1950s he fought against the harrowing system that denied African Americans to stay in hotels on the Vegas strip. His experience with that went a little something like this: he planned to play a concert in Vegas and he was going to stay in a hotel called “Thunderbird”. When he arrived, the receptionist did not assist him, instead she called her manager to tell him that it was against the rules to allow his stay there. This was not going to work out, Belafonte now just wanted to leave and not make a big deal but the manager put him to the “big boss” and he said that the only way could leave without playing his show was in a box, or coffin. He ended up getting to stay but only because of his fame and ties to the Cleveland Mafia. How