Harry Belafonte, a singer, songwriter and groundbreaking actor who started his entertainment career belting 'Day O' in his 1950s hit song 'Banana Boat' before turning to political activism, has died at the age of 96.
Harry Belafonte laughs with a fellow audience member as they depart after a reception for the 2013 Kennedy Center Honors recipients at the White House in Washington, December 8, 2013. REUTERS/Jonathan ErnstApril 25 - Harry Belafonte, a singer, songwriter and groundbreaking actor who started his entertainment career belting "Day O" in his 1950s hit song "Banana Boat" before turning to political activism, has died at the age of 96.
In "Island in the Sun" in 1954 his character entertained notions of a relationship with a white woman played by Joan Fontaine, which reportedly triggered threats to burn down theaters in the American South. In 1959's "Odds Against Tomorrow" Belafonte played a bank robber with a racist partner. "A lot of people say to me, 'When as an artist did you decide to become an activist?'" Belafonte said in a National Public Radio interview in 2011. "I say to them, 'I was long an activist before I became an artist.'"
"It gave me a chance to make political commentary, to make social statements, to talk about things that I found that were unpleasant - and things that I found that were inspiring," he said. "The Navy came as a place of relief for me," Belafonte told Yes! "... But I was also driven by the belief that Hitler had to be defeated ... My commitment sustained itself after the war. Wherever I found resistance to oppression, whether in Africa, in Latin America, certainly here in America in the South, I joined that resistance."
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