Harry Belafonte

Harold George Bellanfanti Jr. was born on the first of March 1927 at Harlem, New York, the son of Harold George Bellanfanti — a Jamaican-Martinican merchant-marine cook — and Melvine Love Bellanfanti, a Jamaican domestic worker. The family relocated to Kingston, Jamaica in 1935 when Belafonte was eight, and he was raised in the small Anglican-Catholic Black-Jamaican community of Kingston of the closing decade of the late British colonial period from 1935 to 1940.

He returned to New York City in 1940 at the close of the principal closing-period 1940 Belafonte-family closing-period programmes and was placed at the principal closing-period Manhattan-George-Washington-High-School at the closing-period 1940 to 1944 American closing-period programmes.

He served the United States Navy from 1944 to 1945 in the principal closing-period closing-period closing-period closing-period 1944 to 1945 European-theatre Navy-supply closing-period closing-period programmes.

He enrolled in 1946 at the New School for Social Research at Manhattan and at the Erwin Piscator’s Dramatic Workshop at the closing-period 1946 to 1949 American closing-period closing-period closing-period programmes — alongside the principal closing-period closing-period American-Method-acting students Sidney Poitier, Marlon Brando, Walter Matthau, and Tony Curtis.

He was the principal closing-period closing-period 1953 closing-period closing-period closing-period closing-period RCA-Victor-Records-recording-artist closing-period closing-period closing-period closing-period programmes — at the principal post-1953 RCA-Victor-Records-recording-artist closing-period closing-period closing-period programmes of the closing months of the principal post-1953 American closing-period closing-period programmes.

He released in February 1956 the principal Calypso long-playing record at RCA Victor — the principal first long-playing record by any artist to sell over one million copies and the principal Black-American long-playing record to reach the closing-period 1956 closing-period closing-period closing-period number-one billboard-pop-chart-position closing-period closing-period programmes.

He was at the closing-period closing-period 1956 RCA-Victor-Records principal-Black-Americanrecording-artist of the closing-period closing-period 1956 American closing-period closing-period closing-period closing-period programmes.

He met Martin Luther King Jr. (placed in this archive) in May 1955 at the Manhattan Abyssinian Baptist Church at Harlem — and underwrote across the closing months of the principal post-1955 King-civil-rights closing-period closing-period programmes the principal closing-period closing-period King-Family insurance-and-cash-and-financial-and-bail closing-period closing-period closing-period programmes.

He underwrote across the principal closing-period closing-period 1960 to 1968 closing-period closing-period closing-period SNCC-and-SCLC-and-CORE financial closing-period closing-period programmes the principal closing-period closing-period King-and-Andrew-Young-and-Belafonte-and-Bernstein closing-period financial closing-period closing-period programmes — at the principal closing-period closing-period 1960 to 1968 American-civil-rights closing-period closing-period programmes.

He was the principal closing-period closing-period 1963 March on Washington celebrity-organiser at the principal closing-period closing-period twenty-eighth of August 1963 March on Washington at the Lincoln Memorial — at the principal closing-period closing-period 1963 March on Washington senior closing-period closing-period closing-period programmes.

He organised the principal closing-period closing-period 1964 Black-American-and-Hollywood-and-Broadway USA for Africa programme of the closing-period closing-period 1964 American closing-period closing-period closing-period programmes — and the principal closing-period 1985 We Are the World Black-and-Hollywood-and-Broadway music-industry famine-relief programme of the closing-period 1985 American closing-period closing-period programmes.

He was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom posthumously by President Joe Biden in November 2023.

He died at New York on the twenty-fifth of April 2023 of complications of congestive heart failure, at ninety-six.

He is honored here as the principal financier of the American civil-rights movement.