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NAACP HONOREE Spingarn Medal
HARRY BELAFONTE
Singing the song of social justice
breakthrough album Calypso and starring roles in Carmen Jones, Porgy and Bess and Odds Against Tomorrow. He had been active in the Civil Rights Movement since the early ‘50s, was a trusted confi dant to Dr. King and helped fi nance the Freedom Rides and voter registration drives throughout the south. The year before, he helped organize the historic March on Washington. So, when SNCC Chairman Jim Foreman said
BY ROYCE OSBORN S
ince 1915, the NAACP has presented the Spingarn Medal for the “highest achievement by an American of African
decent.” In past years, this honor has gone to such notable fi gures as George Washington Carver, Langston Hughes, Rosa Parks and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. This year they are joined by a man who has been the voice for oppressed people around the world — artist and activist Harry Belafonte. In a 1939 remembrance of NAACP Chairman
J.E. Spingarn, it was written “Mr. Spingarn is among the last of those advocates who refused to compromise with injustice regardless of the form it took. He gave freely of his great intellect to help the oppressed. His deeds made him one of those great souls who will live forever in the hearts of his fellow men.” As one who has followed in that tradition,
Harry Belafonte is a fi tting recipient of the 97th Spingarn Medal. On the fi rst page of his extraordinary memoir
My Song, Belafonte tells a story about receiving a late-night phone call in 1964. That summer, hundreds of volunteers had left northern colleges and headed into the Deep South to help register black voters. The caller, a young man working with the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), said, “We’ve got a crisis on our hands down here. We need help.” Clearly, Belafonte was the person to call in
a crisis. By 1964, he had already distinguished himself as a singer and actor, with his
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$50,000 was needed to keep the movement going, Belafonte’s only question was, “How soon do you need it?” Calling on friends and colleagues, Belafonte
managed to raise $70,000 in three days, and recruited his pal Sidney Poitier to help him carry the cash to Mississippi. Freedom Summer would continue. Throughout his life, Belafonte has been
the man to call in a crisis. When a devastating famine struck Ethiopia, he helped organize the production of We Are the World, with Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie. As a goodwill ambassador for UNICEF, he traveled to Senegal to chair the International Symposium of Artists and Intellectuals for African Children. He went on a mission to Rwanda to launch a media campaign to raise awareness of the needs of Rwandan children. He worked tirelessly on the fi ght against apartheid, and for the release of Nelson Mandela. He led a campaign to end HIV/ AIDS in South Africa. Social justice has been as much a part of his life as performing. The eldest son of Jamaican immigrants,
Belafonte got to experience poverty and oppression in Harlem and Jamaica. After a stint in the navy, he became a janitor’s assistant to help his mother make ends meet. But he became enthralled by live theater, and was accepted into the American Negro Theater. He later found his voice as a folk singer, and made a living at clubs in Greenwich Village in the ‘50s. He drew on his Caribbean roots for the album Calypso, and scored a huge hit with “The Banana Boat Song (Day-O).”
“That song is a way of life,” Belafonte told
the New York Times. “It’s a song about my father, my mother, my uncles, the men and women who toil in the banana fi elds, the cane fi elds of Jamaica.” Belafonte became the fi rst African-
American television producer, creating a groundbreaking musical show, and teaming up with Lena Horne for a one-hour special. He also demonstrated the popularity of black entertainment to Hollywood when he collaborated with his longtime friend Sidney Poitier on Buck and the Preacher and Uptown Saturday Night. Like his hero and mentor Spingarn winner
Paul Robeson, Belafonte has never shied away from unpopular causes. Also, like Robeson, he was blacklisted for his outspoken views. He has been a longtime critic of U.S. foreign policy on Cuba and Venezuela, and the wars in Vietnam, Granada and Iraq. In Belafonte’s words, “Dissent is central to democracy.” Belafonte has been an advocate for
prison reform, speaking and performing at penitentiaries throughout the U.S., and he has called out some black celebrities for their lack of political involvement on the issue. “Each and every one of you has the power, the will and the capacity to make a difference in the world,” says Belafonte. “Where your anger comes from is less important than what you do with it.” Despite the injustices he has seen around
the world, Belafonte still believes in man’s basic humanity, and has dedicated his life to making the world better for its children. On the last page of his memoir, Belafonte
writes: “I believe that my time was a remarkable one. I am aware that we now live in a world overrun by cruelty and destruction, and as our earth disintegrates and our spirits numb, we lose moral purpose and creative vision. But still I must believe, as I always have, that our best times are ahead, and that in the fi nal analysis, along the way we shall be comforted by one another. That is my song.”
Watch the 44th NAACP IMAGE AWARDS Friday, February 1, at 8/7C on NBC
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