Harry Belafonte’s involvement with the Civil Rights Movement did not begin or end in Birmingham. Prior to 1963, he had already provided support for members of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee who were jailed for working to register Black voters in Mississippi. In the months and years following the Birmingham Campaign, he participated in the famous March on Washington in August 1963 and the 1965 march from Selma to Montgomery that culminated the Selma Campaign. During a week in February 1968, Harry Belafonte substituted for Johnny Carson as the host of the Tonight Show. He used that opportunity to invite guests including Robert Kennedy and Dr. King who were able to speak to a national TV audience. The first video posted below features the segment with Dr. King in which he describes the next phase of the movement that would focus on economic justice. Within a few months, both men were assassinated. When Dr. King was murdered in April 1968, Harry Belafonte sat with Coretta and the King children during Dr. King’s funeral and continued to help support the family after Dr. King’s death.
Harry Belafonte died last month at the age of 96. Throughout his long life, he never stopped speaking up and advocating for oppressed people in this country and around the world. The second video posted below is the trailer for a documentary about Harry Belafonte called “Sing Your Song.” The trailer provides a glimpse into his long life of committed service. He used his resources and platforms to advance justice for all people. Most of the time, he did so behind the scenes. You and I do not have the same resources and platforms as Harry Belafonte. Yet we are called to follow his example of using our resources and circles of influence to add our part to the great cloud of witnesses committed to racial and economic justice for all God’s children.