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::OTHER NEWS::
LE Newsletter - January 12, 2012
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Harry Belafonte Book Details Poverty, Racism And Fame
Source:
www.thestar.com - By Richard Ouzounian
(Jan 11, 2012) If a man is known by the company he keeps,
then
Harry
Belafonte
is well worth knowing.
His recent autobiography, My Song (Random House) is a
gripping piece of work, not just for the man’s own telling of
the rags to riches tale that’s been his life, but for the
assortment of historical figures that he has been close to.
Paul Robeson, Martin Luther King, Robert Kennedy, the list is as
long as it is impressive and it runs alongside the life story of
a man who felt that “the major purpose my celebrity served was
to allow me a certain level of influence on the social and
political stages of the world.”
The voice that comes over the phone from Manhattan is
unmistakable: a warm, reassuring sound with just a bit of edge;
honey from the comb but with the bee still buzzing nearby.
Despite the fact that music from the Caribbean made him famous,
Belafonte was born in Harlem, in 1927, into poverty that grew so
dire during the Depression that his parents sent him to live
with his grandmother in Jamaica for eight years because “as bad
as things were there, they were better than in America.”
Belafonte has never allowed himself to forget what it felt like
to grow up with “poverty so sharp you could taste it” and has
always stressed the importance of “righteous anger that doesn’t
spill over into violence.”
“Anger is not the villain here. Anger is the necessity. It’s
what you do with the anger that’s important in the final
analysis. For those who are oppressed without anger, there is no
end to their oppression.”
When asked what was more influential in shaping him, racism or
poverty, he chooses his words carefully.
“There was a parallel relationship between the two. I was aware
of the cruelties of race while I was being smothered by the
conditions of poverty. You had to be blind not to see that in
America back then the culture of racism was always there.
“Racism isn’t always a body hanging from a tree. It’s a daily
encounter with where you can’t go, what you can’t do, who you
can’t talk to.”
He served in the navy during World War II and used his veteran’s
assistance to begin studying theatre, “but once that money ran
out, I was lost. I had no skills. I wasn’t a mechanic or a
carpenter. I was a janitor’s assistant. I could scrub a hall or
pull garbage. That was it.”
He could sing, but it took him a while to figure out what his
niche would be.
“I was hunting for my identity. I loved Ella Fitzgerald, but I
didn’t have her class so I drifted towards folk music.
“The only trouble was that I didn’t look like Lead Belly, I
didn’t sing like Woody Guthrie. Who was I? They came up with the
whole notion of selling me as an islands singer, but I resisted
it. “
Belafonte finally gave in, with a wife and two daughters to
feed, so he recorded songs like “Matilda” and “Day-O (The Banana
Boat Song)” and by 1954, he was famous and on his way to being
very rich.
“Once I realized I had acquired celebrity, I felt I could
express myself more freely. The support of my fan base gave me a
great sense of power.”
Belafonte freely associated himself with left-wing causes and
artists who were labouring under Senator McCarthy’s black list,
like the great singer and actor Robeson.
“He was a very paternal, all-embracing man. He alerted me, he
awakened my sensibilities to what possibly lay down the road. He
wanted to make sure that what happened to him would never happen
to me.”
He learned Robeson’s lessons well and, though the FBI and the
CIA kept trying to brand Belafonte as a communist during those
“red scare” years, no accusations ever stuck.
Belafonte became very involved with the Civil Rights movement,
plunging into the heart of the turmoil in 1964 after the murder
of volunteer activists Michael Schwerner, James Chaney and
Andrew Goodman. Belafonte raised money, brought it personally
into the Deep South and had to outrun the Ku Klux Klan for his
life.
“I had a great fear for the world at that time,” he recalls. “I
just knew that bombs would be flying. Africa was in motion, wars
of liberation were everywhere, the time was ripe for
destruction.”
Thanks to his great friend, Martin Luther King, Jr., the centre
held, but when King was assassinated in 1968, Belafonte
immediately flew to Memphis “to help see that the world did not
fall into complete havoc.”
The rest of his life has been devoted to that crusade, with the
music and films that made him a star taking up less and less of
his time.
“In America, the culture is imbued with so many false gods and
altars of worship that we must try to find new leaders who can
reach the people.”
Is Barack Obama one of them? “I have questions about the
president, but I am praying that he will show us soon the
evidence of the strength I know he possesses.
“All that the opposition has to offer is a tangible, visible
nightmare. I believe that I am still living so that I can help
turn around this world we live in. And I also believe that we
will eventually fall into a social rhythm that is far more
embracing, far more compassionate.
“It is what I have to believe. It is what we all have to
believe, if we are to survive.” |
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::ENTERTAINMENT NEWS WITH A CANADIAN TWIST::
