Lea Kahn

By: centraljersey.com
Harry Belafonte has spent most of his life pursuing the ideas and ideals of unity.
Mr. Belafonte brought that passion to Rider University Tuesday night, where he presented the keynote address during Rider University’s 13th annual Unity Days. The weeklong event celebrates the diverse elements that make up the Rider community.
Mr. Belafonte’s interest in pursuing the cause of unity arose out of his experiences as a black man and as a black performer in the United States. He made his career as a musician, singer and actor after World War II, and was also an early proponent of the civil rights movement.
Although he gave up performing in public many years ago, the 84-year-old Mr. Belafonte told the audience in the Cavalla Room at the Bart Luedeke Center, it was not so easy to distance himself from social concerns. He noted that his parents – who were both from the Caribbean islands and who met in the United States – struggled to survive in this country.
His father eventually left his mother, and she had to raise him and his brother, Mr. Belafonte said. He said he watched his mother struggle, as an immigrant woman and a single mother in the Harlem section of New York City, where Mr. Belafonte and his brother were born.
"I watched her endure and struggle. She was not highly educated. (But) I watched the magic of life unfold, and it was incredible. She refused to submit. She resisted people who would have her feel that she was less (of a person than they were because she was a black female)," Mr. Belafonte said.
Mr. Belafonte and his brother were sent to live in Jamaica, which was his mother’s home country, for a few years. But when World War II broke out and the British were in danger of being overrun, she brought her sons back to Harlem. He said she was afraid of what the Nazis would do to the blacks.
Mr. Belafonte enlisted in the U.S. Navy during World War II. He said he believed in the stories that the United States was fighting for freedom – "only to find that such generosity did not abound."
Segregation was "rampant," he said, adding that there was a choice to either submit to such tyranny or to take a stab against it and make the United States live up to its stated belief that all men were created equal.
"In that pursuit, I found my life in the theater," Mr. Belafonte said, who was working as a janitor’s assistant upon his discharge from the U.S. Navy.
Someone gave him a pair of tickets to see a production at the American Negro Theater. All 40 seats were filled, and the audience was whispering, he said. Then the lights dimmed and the curtain went up, and the actors walked onto the stage.
"A force ripped through me. I was absolutely transfixed," said Mr. Belafonte. He said he had never seen a play before, although he had gone to the movies and vaudeville shows. He had never heard "literary words" spoken, he said.
Mr. Belafonte offered to work around the theater, performing odd jobs, just to be near the theater. The theater company needed a young man to play a role in a play, and he was asked if he would do it. In the team spirit, he agreed to do it – "and that’s all she wrote," he said. He was hooked on theater.
On the third night of the play production, the world famous actor Paul Robeson stopped to see the play. Mr. Robeson spoke to the actors at the American Negro Theater after the performance, and that was all Mr. Belafonte needed.
He studied acting at the Dramatic Workshop under director Erwin Piscator, but his musical career was launched after he sang a song in another play. One song led to another, he said, and that’s how he became a singer.
"I admired popular singers, but I needed more," he said. "Singing ‘moon,’ ‘June,’ ‘do you love me, baby’ was not sufficient."
He became enthralled by the songs of folk singers Woody Guthrie and Leadbelly. The social content of their material was "overwhelming," he said. When he played at the Village Vanguard in Greenwich Village in Manhattan, Mr. Robeson again came to see him perform.
"Paul Robeson came backstage and told me, ‘If you can get them to sing your song, they will want to know who you are,’" Mr. Belafonte said. Mr. Robeson was his mentor.
That advice struck home when "The Banana Boat" song – one of the songs most associated with Mr. Belafonte- became a worldwide sensation. He said he understood for the first time about the power of having a platform and having a number of people listening to him.
"How do you mold that moment in life? I became an activist," Mr. Belafonte said.
Mr. Belafonte worked closely with President John F. Kennedy, who consulted the singer when he was running for the presidency. When the candidate sought the singer’s help in reaching out to black voters, Mr. Belafonte introduced him to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and other black leaders.
Mr. Belafonte later became a humanitarian activist in African matters.
Nowadays, Mr. Belafonte said, he spends his time accepting invitations to speak to young people, such as the Rider University engagement. There is so much out there to learn, he said, challenging the students to ask what kind of world do they live in.
"Who are the people who live in the world? Who do you fear the most? That’s the person you need to know. (Society) keeps pushing distortions down our throats. Don’t give up and don’t give in," he urged the audience.
"One day, someone will walk into your room and say, ‘Sing your song, sing your song.’ They will want to know who you are," Mr. Belafonte said.