Belafonte a ‘star’ not only in singing, but as a humanitarian

By Rabbi Ben Kamin

Rabbi Ben Kamin

SAN DIEGO — Harry Belafonte, the musical legend and civil rights icon, first met Martin Luther King Jr. in 1956.   King phoned the rising calypso star in New York, and according to Belafonte’s memoirs, said, simply:   “You don’t know me, Mr. Belafonte, but my name is Martin Luther King Jr.”   Belafonte, astonished, replied: “Oh, I know you.  Everybody knows you.”

The young Dr. King was headed for New York to raise funds for the Montgomery bus boycott, which was moving along but was desperately short of cash.  Belafonte was, and remains, atypical among Hollywood celebrities.  Belafonte was a man whose talent and charisma were matched by his zeal—his anger—regarding the historic oppression of blacks by the white establishment.  The entertainer was not wrapped up in his own hard-won celebrity.   He would take unparalleled physical risks himself in his pro-active, very present participation in a number of protests, most notably the Montgomery to Selma march in 1965 to secure voting rights for African Americans.

Belafonte was well-aware of the preacher who was already intoning his refrain from pulpits and community lecterns, “There comes a time when people get tired…”  Unlike other media luminaries, he was not drenched with vanities, nor did he confine his recording artistry to pop and his trademark West Indian rhapsody.   His music was sung in the lyrics of his political activism and international humanitarianism—from the Freedom Rides of Mississippi to the 1963 March on Washington to the famine fields of Rwanda.

He experienced racial discrimination first-hand, often barred from performing in Southern clubs and theaters.   He was blacklisted by the McCarthyites, hounded by FBI surveillance, and tracked by Klan members and their small-town police acolytes.   He never disassociated his fame from his outrage and, in time, became a key underwriter of King’s and the civil rights movement in general. Belafonte is not an actor with lines; he is a real person with guts.

When King called Belafonte, the preacher asked if they could meet at Harlem’s Abyssinian Baptist Church.  King was en route to recruit other minsters to the cause.  It was agreed that they would talk following King’s sermon.  Belafonte wrote about the first encounter:   “When I met him in a reception room, I was struck by his sense of calm.”   There were photographers and gawkers in the area.  King politely motioned them away and led Belafonte to the basement, which was used as the Sunday School class.  Belafonte recalls that the room was nondescript, with a simple chalkboard, a folding table, and some wooden chairs.  King closed the door; “it was just the two us,” remembers Belafonte.   Wherever the Movement was going, Harry Belafonte was coming along.  The two men conversed for some three hours.  It was transformative for Belafonte.  “All I knew was that here was the real deal,” Belafonte added, “a leader both inspired and daunted by the burden he’d taken on.”

For the remaining twelve years of King’s life, the musician would be at his side, listening to Martin divulge his deepest fears, his frustrations with his marriage, even his profound guilt about his infidelities, as well as his remorse about creating so much danger and anguish for the many people, black and white, whom he also conscripted into the service of the movement   Harry has always remembered one thing:  “I felt [Martin] pulling me up to that higher plane of social protest…I’d find I wanted to live by those values myself, both to help the movement and to wash away my personal anger.”

*
Rabbi Kamin is a freelance writer based in San Diego.  He may be contacted at ben.kamin@sdjewishworld.com