Harry Belafonte, a pioneering singer, songwriter and actor who began his showbiz career singing "Day O" before turning to political activism, has died at the age of 96, the New York Times reported Tuesday.

He was a black actor committed to the cause against racial discrimination and a personal friend of Martin Luther King Jr. with whom he shared the struggle for civil rights in the United States in the early 60s. In the 1980s, he became the driving force behind the song "We Are the World," a celebrity-filled hit battling famine. Belafonte once said that he was in a constant state of rebellion driven by anger.

"I have to be part of the rebellion that tries to change all this," he told the New York Times in 2001. "Anger is a necessary fuel. Rebellion is healthy."

Belafonte was born in the New York borough of Manhattan, but spent his early childhood in his native Jamaica. Handsome and kind, he became known as the "King of Calypso" early in his career. He was the first black person allowed to perform in many upscale nightspots and also made racial breakthroughs in film at a time when segregation was prevalent in much of the United States.

In 1957's "An Island in the Sun," his character cherished the idea of a relationship with a white woman played by Joan Fontaine, allegedly prompting threats to burn down movie theaters in the American South. In Robert Wise's "Bets Against Tomorrow" (1959), he gave a bank robber a racist associate.

In the 60s he campaigned with King, and in the 80s he worked to end apartheid in South Africa and coordinated Nelson Mandela's first visit to the United States.

We are the world

Belafonte traveled the world as a UNICEF goodwill ambassador in 1987 and later set up an AIDS foundation. In 2014 he received an Oscar for his humanitarian work. He spearheaded "We Are the World," the 1985 all-star musical collaboration that raised funds to alleviate famine in Ethiopia. After seeing a somber report on the humanitarian catastrophe, he wanted to do something similar to the song "Do They Know It's Christmas?" by the British supergroup Band Aid, which had raised funds a year earlier. It featured superstars such as Michael Jackson, Stevie Wonder, Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, Ray Charles and Diana Ross, and grossed millions of dollars.

"A lot of people say to me, 'When did you decide to become an activist?' Belafonte said in an interview on National Public Radio in 2011. "I tell them, 'I was an activist long before I became an artist.'"

Even in his late 80s, Belafonte was still speaking out about racial and income equality and urging President Barack Obama to do more to help the poor. She was co-chair of the Women's March on Washington held the day after Donald Trump's inauguration as president in January 2017.

Belafonte's political zeal made headlines in January 2006 during a trip to Venezuela when he called President George W. Bush "the world's greatest terrorist." That same month he compared the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to Nazi Germany's Gestapo.

On the occasion of his 90th birthday, on March 1, 2017, an anthology of his music was published. A few weeks before the release, Belafonte told Rolling Stone magazine that singing was for him a way to express the injustices of the world. "It gave me the opportunity to make social statements, to talk about things that I found unpleasant... and things that I found inspiring," he said.

Born Harold George Bellanfanti in New York's Harlem neighborhood, he moved to Jamaica before returning to New York for high school.

He described his father as an abusive drunkard who abandoned him and his mother, leaving Belafonte with a longing for a stable family. He drew strength from his mother, an uneducated domestic worker, who instilled in him the activist spirit. "We were taught never to capitulate, never to give in, to always resist oppression," Belafonte told Yes!

Resistance

During World War II he enlisted in the Navy, which also provided him with stability after dropping out of high school. "The Navy was a place of relief for me," Belafonte said. "But I was also driven by the belief that Hitler had to be defeated... My commitment remained after the war. Wherever I encountered resistance to oppression, whether it was in Africa, in Latin America, certainly here in the United States in the South, I joined that resistance."

After the Navy, Belafonte worked as a janitor in an apartment building and as a stagehand at the American Negro Theater before landing roles and studying with Marlon Brando and Sidney Poitier, another pioneering black actor who would become a close friend. She also appeared on Broadway in "Almanac," for which she won a Tony Award, and in the film "Carmen Jones" in 1954.

Belafonte's third album, "Calypso", became the first by a solo performer to sell over a million copies. "Banana Boat," a song about Caribbean longshoremen with its sonorous "Day O," made him a star. However, in the 60s, a surgical intervention to remove a nodule on his vocal cords reduced his voice to a whisper.

In 1959 he began producing films and partnered with Poitier to produce "Buck and the Faker" and "Uptown Saturday Night". In 1984, he produced "Beat Street", one of the first films about break-dance and hip-hop culture.

Belafonte was the first black performer to win a major Emmy in 1960 with his appearance in a television variety special. He also won Grammy Awards in 1960 and 1965 and received a Grammy for a Lifetime Achievement in 2000, but expressed frustration with the limits imposed on black artists in show business. In 1994, Belafonte received the National Medal of Arts.

He was married three times. With his first wife, Marguerite Byrd, he had two children, including actress and model Shari Belafonte. He also had two children with his second wife, Julia Robinson, a former dancer.

  • United States
  • Grammy
  • Africa
  • Adolf Hitler
  • New York
  • Nelson Mandela
  • UNICEF
  • Venezuela
  • Donald Trump
  • Barack Obama
  • Bob Dylan
  • Bruce Springsteen
  • Michael Jackson
  • cinema
  • music

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

Learn more