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NYTimes
New York Times
25 Apr 2023


NextImg:Harry Belafonte: A Life in Photos

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.

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Credit...Metronome/Getty Images

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.

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Credit...CBS Photo Archive/Getty Images

Mr. Belafonte took part in a “prayer pilgrimage for freedom” in Washington in 1957.

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Credit...George Tames/The New York Times

Mr. Belafonte performed at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in Manhattan in 1956.

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Credit...Al Lambert/Associated Press

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.

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Credit...Fox

Mr. Belafonte was back on Broadway in 1960 with a one-man show, “Belafonte at the Palace.”

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Credit...Associated Press

Mr. Belafonte addressed a civil rights rally in New York City in May 1960.

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Credit...Jacob Harris/Associated Press

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.

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Credit...Associated Press

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.

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Credit...Robert Abbott Sengstacke/Getty Images

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.

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Credit...Al Fenn/The LIFE Picture Collection, via Shutterstock

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.

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Credit...Fred Sabine/NBCU Photo Bank, via Getty Images

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.

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Credit...Bob Fitch Archive, Stanford University

Mr. Belafonte with Lena Horne in 1970 at an event in support of the civil rights activist Andrew Young’s campaign for Congress.

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Credit...Ron Galella/Ron Galella Collection, via Getty Images

Mr. Belafonte in concert at the Palladium in London in 1977.

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Credit...David Redfern/Redferns, via Getty Images

Mr. Belafonte took part in an anti-apartheid protest outside the South African Embassy in Washington in 1984.

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Credit...Charles Tasnadi/Associated Press

In his capacity as UNICEF good-will ambassador, Mr. Belafonte visited Kenya in 2004 to monitor the success of free primary education there.

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Credit...Antony Njuguna/Reuters

Mr. Belafonte accepted the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award from Mr. Poitier in 2014.

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Credit...Kevin Winter/Getty Images

Mr. Belafonte in 2016.

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Credit...Todd Heisler/The New York Times