Harry Belafonte, born in Harlem to West Indian immigrants, captivated audiences with his singing and almost single-handedly ignited a craze for Caribbean music. He achieved movie stardom with his striking good looks and won a Tony Award for best featured actor in a musical. For a time he was the most highly paid Black performer in history.
But Mr. Belafonte, who died on Tuesday, was more than an entertainer; his primary focus from the late 1950s until the end of his life was civil rights. He became a confidant of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and took part in the March on Washington in 1963. In the 1980s, he helped organize a cultural boycott of South Africa under apartheid to raise money to fight famine in Africa.
In all his endeavors he broke racial barriers but ultimately never saw the progress he had hoped for, writing in his autobiography that “the problems faced by most Americans of color seem as dire and entrenched as they were half a century ago.”
Here is a selection of images from Mr. Belafonte’s life.
In October 1953, Mr. Belafonte sang on Ed Sullivan’s popular CBS-TV variety show. That year he also appeared on Broadway in the 1953 “John Murray Anderson’s Almanac,” a performance that won him a Tony Award.
Mr. Belafonte took part in a “prayer pilgrimage for freedom” in Washington in 1957.
Mr. Belafonte performed at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in Manhattan in 1956.
Mr. Belafonte with Dorothy Dandridge in the 1954 movie musical “Carmen Jones.” Although they were both accomplished vocalists, their singing voices were dubbed by opera singers.
Mr. Belafonte was back on Broadway in 1960 with a one-man show, “Belafonte at the Palace.”
Mr. Belafonte addressed a civil rights rally in New York City in May 1960.
Mr. Belafonte posed with his wife, Julie, and his children (from left) Gina, David and Adrienne at Kennedy International Airport in 1961, before leaving for an extended engagement at the Riviera Hotel in Las Vegas.
Mr. Belafonte participated in a march shortly after the assassination of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. with, among many others, Dr. King’s widow, Coretta Scott King (center, in black). Next to her were her children on one side and the Rev. Ralph Abernathy and Andrew Young on the other.
Mr. Belafonte with Sidney Poitier at a civil rights rally. The men met years earlier at the American Negro Theater in New York, where Mr. Belafonte worked as a stagehand while studying theater.
Mr. Belafonte co-starred with Julie Andrews in a television special in 1969. It was the second time he had appeared on television with a white female singer (the first was with Petula Clark); both appearances angered many viewers.
Mr. Belafonte, second from left, in Chicago in 1966 with, from left, Sidney Poitier, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the gospel singer Mahalia Jackson and the civil rights activist Al Raby.
Mr. Belafonte with Lena Horne in 1970 at an event in support of the civil rights activist Andrew Young’s campaign for Congress.
Mr. Belafonte in concert at the Palladium in London in 1977.
Mr. Belafonte took part in an anti-apartheid protest outside the South African Embassy in Washington in 1984.
In his capacity as UNICEF good-will ambassador, Mr. Belafonte visited Kenya in 2004 to monitor the success of free primary education there.
Mr. Belafonte accepted the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award from Mr. Poitier in 2014.
