OPENING

TMAC
I’m Terrance McKnight. And this show is called ‘Making Belafonte’.

[Belafonte: At Carnegie Hall - Cu Cu Ru Cu Cu Paloma - Live]

BELAFONTE - ARCHIVE
Hi, my name is Harry Belafonte.

TMAC
Belafonte is a—I mean, he’s so many things.

BELAFONTE - ARCHIVE
I’m an artist, and I’m not a politician.

TMAC
He’s such a humanitarian - in his acting, in his music, in his social activism.

BELAFONTE - ARCHIVE
But like most Americans I have a great interest in the political and the economic destiny of my country.

TMAC
But he was a hero to... so many.

ARCHIVE
Here is  one of the great artists of our country, and one of the greatest artists of the world.  Harry Belafonte!

[HARRY BELAFONTE MONTAGE]

TMAC
And… He was a hero to, you know, everybody in my family for sure.

TMAC GROWING UP

[America the Beautiful]

TMAC
Well… That’s, you know, growing up my parents were very particular about what they allowed us to watch on television—especially my father. You know, he grew up in Jim Crow Mississippi.

ARCHIVE
If you want to know how integration has been held outside Mississippi for this long, you must first call on the Citizens Council, an organization dedicated to states rights and racial integrity, support...

TMAC
My father, being a pastor, he was very familiar with how negatively blacks were portrayed in media.

ARCHIVE
The invaders are 14 negro and white passengers on an inbound bus—the riders are only a symbol, the real invader is integration, and he has been long on the road to Mississippi.

TMAC
He was very aware of things that people thought he couldn't do. And so he didn't want us to buy into that. So he was very particular about what he allowed us to watch on television and listen to on the radio. But... [MUSIC]... If Sidney Poitier or Harry Belafonte were on television… It was cool!

[Darlin’ Cora]
‘I ain't a man to be played with / I ain't nobody's toy / Been working for my pay for a long, long time /
How come he still calls me boy...’

TMAC
Yeah well, when I was a little kid, because of my older siblings, Belafonte was somebody that I adored. Just because he was on television made him cool. You know he felt like an extension of our family just because we could see him on television, you know he was so visible. You know he was always a hero even when he was bad.

[Mama Look A Boo Boo]
‘I wonder why nobody don't like me / Or is it the fact that I'm ugly?...’

BELAFONTE’S HOME

TMAC
So the day I went to his house I remember just being so overwhelmed by the… I was overwhelmed by it! So I stood outside his apartment. I took a picture of myself. I don't know why, I rarely do that. But I did and... You know—So we went upstairs and waited at the door for a couple of minutes.  And after the door was answered, we sat in his living room, and after about five minutes he appeared, with this halo...[BELAFONTE W/ TMAC IN THE BACKGROUND]... In the interview, if you hear that interview man I really sound like I'm about 13 years old.

TMAC W/ BELAFONTE
Now I remember you saying (you didn't say it to me, but…) you said that when you first started singing you felt like you were an actor, who was acting like a singer.

BELAFONTE
Well I was! ...[LAUGHS]... I was, because I often said that I was an… An actor who became a singer, not a singer who became an actor.

[In That Great Gettin’ Up Mornin’]
‘...There's a better day a coming, fare thee well, fare thee well / There's a better day a coming, fare thee well, fare thee well…’

BELAFONTE
But in song, I found that these songs can say as much as a play. So let's find songs that are saying something!

MUSIC IN CLEAR 1min
‘...In that great gettin' up morning, fare thee well, fare thee well / In that great gettin' up morning, fare thee well, fare thee well / Oh preacher fold your bible, fare thee well, fare thee well / Oh preacher fold your bible, fare thee well, fare thee well / For the last souls converted, fare thee well, fare thee well / Yes for the last souls converted, fare thee well, fare thee well / In that great gettin' up morning, fare thee well, fare thee well / In that great gettin' up morning, fare thee well, fare thee well / In that great gettin' up morning, fare thee well, fare thee well / In that great gettin' up morning, fare thee well, fare thee well.’

ON THE CHURCH

[MUSIC - ARCHIVE]

ARCHIVE
By 1860, there are roughly 4 million enslaved Africans in the United States...

BELAFONTE
White folks loved to hear us sing, it always suggested to them the joy of the enslaved. ‘All your songs are so gorgeous and beautiful.’ Yet if they took time in their hostility, to look below the surface, they would’ve found that songs and music really reflected a deep, deep message about what we were feeling and thinking.

ARCHIVE
...The spiritual in turn become the wellspring for generations of musicians who will create the blues, gospel, jazz, and the protest songs of the 1960s.

BELAFONTE
And all of our songs—which was mostly framed in the religious form—said a lot of things.
‘Oh Lord I'm waitin' on you…’,  I love those songs of black protest.  

[Oh Lord I’m Waiting on You]
‘...Down here lord, waiting on you / Down here lord, waiting on you / Down here lord, waiting on you / Can’t do nothing ‘till the spirit comes / Groan a little…’

BELAFONTE
And the religious form was the one that gave us the resources to express that.

[MUSIC]
‘...Waiting on you / Groan a little groan, waiting on you…’

BELAFONTE
Out of that came, what was really America's richest and the truest expression of itself. And that attracted me very young.

[MUSIC]
‘...Cry a little cry, waiting on you / Cry a little cry, waiting on you / Can’t do nothing ‘till the spirit comes / Down here lord...‘

BELAFONTE
And because the church was the only place that gave freedom to us, to express, to congregate, the church by default really became a center of huge importance to us, and in it we find everything we are.

[MUSIC]
‘...Can’t do nothing ‘till the spirit comes / Groan a little groan...’

TMAC
The spirituals, were songs crafted on southern plantations. They were songs of suffering but they were also songs of hope, disguised as religious conviction.

[MUSIC]
‘...Can’t do nothing ‘till the spirit comes / Cry a little cry, waiting on you…’

TMAC
And although Belafonte recognizes and appreciates the role church in the black community, he’s also very critical about some of its practices.

BELAFONTE
I've always been in conflict with the church, because I saw what it did in the use of its space to keep us in a place of containment, worshipping a white God, and speaking a message that only has validity if it comes from his text and his space. And I thought that black people are very clever they took it to other places and said other things.

[MUSIC]
‘...Waiting on you / On my knees, waiting on you / On my knees, waiting on you / Can’t do nothing ‘till the spirit comes…’

BELAFONTE
Black culture was a dynamic that was so American, that was so unique to this country, that we occupied our own space. And many things reveal the uniqueness of that existence, of peoples of color as a culture.

[LOUIS ARMSTRONG WITH STRINGS-Nobody Knows The Trouble I’ve Seen]
‘Nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen, nobody knows but Jesus…’

BELAFONTE
Number one being jazz…

[MUSIC]
‘Nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen, glory, Hallelujah…’

BELAFONTE
Being the music that emerged from the struggles of our experience and became the most popular art form not just in this country but in the world.

[MUSIC]
‘...Oh, yes lord / Sometimes I’m almost to the ground / Oh, yeah lord…’

BELAFONTE
So we were constantly using music as the force through which to express our existence. For us to communicate this pain was the tool through which we were cleverly able to express our feelings about being in this nation.

MUSIC IN CLEAR 30secs
‘...The troubles I’ve seen / Glory Hallelujah’ / Oh glory, Hallelujah…’

BORN IN HARLEM

TMAC
That is nice. Harry Belafonte was born right here in New York, Harlem Hospital, 1927.

BELAFONTE - ARCHIVE
I wasn’t always a small boy in the West Indies, I was a small boy in New York city first. My father was a seaman, and he used to go drifting every now and then. As a matter of fact we used to call him ‘old drifter’.

[Belafonte: At Carnegie Hall - Man Piaba]
‘...to tell me the story ‘bout the bird and bee / He said, "The woman piaba and the man piaba and the Ton Ton call baka lemon grass / The lily root, gully root, belly root uhmm / And the famous grandy scratch scratch…’

TMAC
His parents were immigrants. In fact, he grew up with his immigrant grandmother.

BELAFONTE
I was born in Harlem, went at the age of a year and a half to the Caribbean. Grew up for the first 12 years of my life with a very white grandmother who came from Scotland, a remarkable woman that embraced me and gave me a sense of well-being.

[MUSIC]
‘...I've been over land and been over sea / Trying to find the answer 'bout the bird and bee / But now that I am ninety three / I don't give a damn you see/ If the woman piaba and the man piaba / And the Ton Ton call baka lemongrass / The lily root, gully root, belly root uhmm / And the famous grandy scratch scratch.’

1939 - WWII

[BESSIE SMITH - Gimme A Pigfoot And A Bottle Of Beer]

TMAC
In the 1930s, for some, New York City was a place of absolute desperation.

[MUSIC]
‘...Twenty-five cents? Ha! No! No! I wouldn't pay twenty-five cents to go in nowhere, 'cause listen here / Up in Harlem every Saturday night..’.

TMAC
Think about rent parties, overpriced housing, high rates of unemployment, illicit gambling. The blues singer, Bessie Smith paints a very vivid picture of  the night life.

[MUSIC]
‘...And what they do is / Cha cha cha…’

BELAFONTE - ARCHIVE
It was during the… The Great Depression. The black community I think was the most seriously affected. There was absolutely no work. The bread lines, the welfare. And my brother and I were left pretty much to the ways of the streets.

[MUSIC]
‘...Hannah say / 'Gimme a pigfoot and a bottle of beer…’

BELAFONTE - ARCHIVE
My mother was a woman of demanding standards. And she decided that the primitive hills of Jamaica was an infinitely better place for us to be than the jungles of the streets of New York.

TMAC
So, Belafonte grew up in Jamaica, which rooted him in Caribbean culture, gave him a strong sense of pride, work ethic, and of course exposed him to Jamaican music.

[Louise Bennett - Jamaican Folk Songs - Linstead Market]
‘I carry mi ackee, go a Linstead Market / Not a quattie worth sell…’

BELAFONTE
Music was so much a part of the environment, that was the only relief we had for the kind of work that you did, chopping cane and digging taters. And I loved those songs and as a kid I just jig to them and did things.  

[MUSIC]
‘...Lord what a night, not a bite, what a Saturday night / Lord what a night not a bite, what a Saturday night.’

TMAC
Then in 1939, when the second World War broke out.

[William Dawson - Negro Folk Symphony (1934)]

BELAFONTE - ARCHIVE
No one knew quite what was going to happen. Whether we’ll ever get a boat, whether we’ll ever be able to come back. What was going to happen to the world.

[MUSIC]

TMAC
Belafonte’s mother decided to move the family back to New York.

[MUSIC]

TMAC
And when he got to New York, he immediately felt displaced. Harlem, wasn’t Montego Bay.

[MUSIC]

BELAFONTE
Then when I came back to America looking for my identity, there was no translation. I wasn't born in the black church. I wasn't born in the ghettos of some rural, crushing place, I came from Jamaica. We were heady, we were ambitious, we would not accept oppression as it was dealt to us, we reshaped it to fit our existence. We spoke with purpose, but we spoke with passion.

MARCUS GARVEY
We can do it / Yeah! / we shall do it / Yeah! / we appraise of god for vision and for leadership. And he has given us our universal vision.

CHARLIE WHITE

BELAFONTE
And school was wholly unsatisfactory. Public school system said nothing in its curriculum that appealed to what I needed in life.

TMAC
And a close friend of Belafonte’s, the artist Charles White, who grew up in Chicago, had a very similar experience.

CHARLES WHITE - ARCHIVE
I remember the first day of class I had in my second year U.S. history, I raised this question to my teacher: Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth, Frederick Douglass, why these names weren't mentioned in the standard U.S. history? And she told me to sit down. Oh no.

TMAC
And in his art, Charles White portrayed Belafonte as the voice of Jericho, and in Belafonte's mind, he portrayed Charles with this protest song, ‘John Henry’.

[John Henry (Live)]
‘...John Henry he could hammer / He could whistle, he could sing / Went to the mountain early in the mornin' / Just to hear his hammer ring, Lord, Lord / Just to hear his hammer ring. / Just to hear his hammer ring, Lord, Lord / Just to hear his hammer ring. / Well the people took John Henry to the White House / And they buried him in the sand / Every locomotive come roarin’ by / Says there lies a steel-drivin’ man, lord God / Yes there lies a steel-drivin’ man…’

TMAC
So Belafonte and Charles White shared this frustration with our education system and they bonded in the 1940s over black culture and black history and their desire to bring that to the fore, in american culture.

[APPLAUSE]

TMAC
They remain friends until Charles White’s death in 1979.

[MUSIC]

BELAFONTE
Oh dear Charles, what are you doing now? And wherever you are, Heaven or Hell, make a space for me.  

[Fela Sowande - African Suite II. Nostalgia Andante]

COMMITTEE FOR THE NEGRO IN THE ARTS

MUSIC IN CLEAR 23secs

TMAC
The Committee For The Negro In The Arts was a very necessary organization that was founded in the mid 1940s. And they were looking to build a community, a community of like-minded individuals.

BELAFONTE
So the committee did that, gave us a sense of belonging. Many of us flocked to it, it was the center of rebellious thought, glorious thought. And in the Committee for the Negro In the Arts, how do we develop a greater place in the American theme? And finding validity in each other was the way to go.

TMAC
They were really trying to change the way that blacks were portrayed in television and radio.

BELAFONTE
And the leaders of that were people like Charlie White, and Langston Hughes.

LANGSTON HUGHES
‘Well, son, I’ll tell you: / Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair. / It’s had tacks in it, / And splinters, / And boards torn up, / And places with no carpet on the floor— / Bare.’

[MUSIC]

AMOS & ANDY SHOW

AMOS
Andy did you hear that? Come on!

ANDY
Did I hear what?

AMOS
That Whistle!

TMAC
In the 1920s there was a show that came on board called Amos and Andy.

ANNOUNCER
...and Rinso presents—the Amos and Andy Show!

[Amos & Andy Show]

TMAC
Two white guys portraying black folks. And it was a national show. And its portrayal of blacks kind of went hand-in-hand with minstrelsy.

AMOS
Fellas you asked for it, and I gon’ tell ya, first of all both of yous is two of the most laziest people I know. Look at you Andy, right now you oughta be thinking of a way out of your mess. Better that than you just sitting there with your feets up on the desk!

ANDY
Well that ain’t being lazy, I’s thinkin’!

TMAC
That portrayal of them being lazy, trying to get over on the system.

[20 mins]

AMOS
I betcha that last year you was in 40 different businesses and every one of them went bankrupt. You never sees nothin’ through to a finish!

ANDY
Well how much more of a finish can you have than bankrupt?!

[AUDIENCE LAUGHS AND APPLAUSE]

TMAC
And so, with the power of that show, this committee wanted to get rid of that kind of programming, but also to paint a different picture of black life, and of black humanity. And so these artists came together...

BELAFONTE
I was quite young.

TMAC
In 1947...

BELAFONTE
It was 1947, 46...

TMAC
Through this committee for negroes in the arts.

WHAT’S A THEATER?  

BELAFONTE
I'd just come out of the war. I had no identity. I was a serviceman and when I came out I had no skills, had no education, had nothing. I was a janitor's assistant.

[William Dawson - Negro Folk Symphony (1934)]

BELAFONTE
And with that statement of fact, I decided that the thing I needed most to do was to be the best janitor's assistant the world had ever known. So my halls were always the cleanest, the brass was always the most polished, and you only got the sense with every place you looked in this menial work somebody was in the struggle for space and identity. And then I met the tenants, and I began to know more about the tenants, the tenants of color, because they were the ones I served.

[MUSIC]

BELAFONTE
And a couple of them saw in me an investment that could be made. One of the women was a woman by the name of Clarice Taylor, and Clarice Taylor was a great black actress and a woman of a great gift for embracing talent.

CLARICE TAYLOR

ARCHIVE
“It’s not that they discriminate, just that they just don’t hire us.”
“Maybe things are changing Mary.”
“Oh don’t misunderstand.”

BELAFONTE
And ah... I did a job for her. She gave me a gratuity. Two tickets to a theater. And I was looking for five dollars or two dollars. I’d settle for two, but she gave me these tickets and I was a little pissed off, that I’m sitting here with two tickets to go—what’s a theater?! I had no idea what it was, and felt put upon that she didn't understand what I really needed was some money!

[Harry Belafonte - The Colored Volunteer]
‘Oh Fremont he told us, when this war was first begun / How to save the Union, and the way it should be done / But Kentucky swore so hard, and old Abe he had his fears / So every hope was lost the Colored Volunteers…’

BELAFONTE
But eventually, watching those tickets on the cupboard, top of the desk and looking at them for weeks I decided to go see what it was about, and I walked into the American Negro Theater and lo and behold—an epiphany. I walked into a place that just blew me away. A lot of black people gathered in a room, making happy noise, and speaking and talking and looking like they had purpose in life, and I said ‘Damn, maybe I can find identity here.’

[MUSIC]
‘...The gallant Comp'ny "A", / will make the rebels dance, / And we'll stand by the Union if we only have a chance…’

TMAC
This is a march that Belafonte included in his box set “The Long Road to Freedom, An Anthology of Black Music”. It’s a sort-of civil-war era march. And you can imagine Belafonte performing this on stage, of the American Negro Theater.

[MUSIC]
‘...Oh, give us a flag, all free without a slave; / We'll fight to defend it as our fathers did so brave; / The gallant Comp'ny "A", / will make the rebels dance, / And we'll stand by the Union if we only have a chance…’

A.N.T

BELAFONTE
I used to do menial work for the A.N.T,  I set the chairs for the audience as they would come in to the auditorium. I made sure the programs were fixed. And I was in service to the group.

[Juno - I Wish It So]

BELAFONTE
And then one day they got a play, Juno and the Paycock.

[MUSIC]
‘I've an unrest inside me / Oh, it's long I have had such an unrest inside me / And it's gettin' real bad…’

TMAC
Juno and the Paycock was written by Sean O’Casey.

SEAN O’CASEY - ARCHIVE
This play is Ireland of the tenement houses of Dublin, where the poor ore workers lived, and where many of them are living still.

BELAFONTE
Sean O’Casey was probably one of the greatest playwrights of the 20th century.

SEAN O’CASEY - ARCHIVE
It is nineteen hundred and twenty-two. The time of the troubles, the civil war.

[MUSIC]
‘...And I think I’ll go mad…’

[Juno and the Paycock - Daarlin' Man]
[CAPTAIN BOYLE]
‘… The world is in a state of chassis! …’

[JOXER]
‘Chassis? Aye, that’s a daarlin’ word!’

[CAPTAIN BOYLE]
‘The whole world is in a terrible state o’ chassis!’

TMAC
A black painter named Charlie Sebree chose this play, Juno and the Paycock, because in it he felt the connection between the Irish struggle for independence in Ireland, and the Black struggle for independence here in America.

[CAPTAIN BOYLE]
‘…Aye, that I have! Who is the man...’

BELAFONTE
The Irish in their rebellion against the British and colonialism, and Black people in America in their struggle against white oppression. And the Irish, when they conquered the British and kicked them out of Ireland, inspired Charlie.  

[MUSIC]
‘…You’re devil right! Where is the one with the mighty arm for old and young…’

BELAFONTE
And I was asked to play a part, because there was no member of the ensemble that was eligible to play the part.

[MUSIC]
‘...Agh you’re a Daarlin’ man, a daarlin’ man! / That’s what I’m telling you...’

TMAC
So Belafonte played ‘Captain’ Jack Boyle, who often complained about work and spent all his time drinking.

[MUSIC]

TMAC
The complete opposite of Belafonte’s personality

BELAFONTE
When I got on stage and said my words, with tremendous anxiety, I heard applause.

[MUSIC AND APPLAUSE]

BELAFONTE
It was the first place that I remembered mass approval. Everyone was applauding something you did. And I said, gee this is easy, you just say some words and people like you. But then I understood that it was what the words said that made the difference. So I knew that the theater was a space that I should explore.

NEW SCHOOL for SOCIAL RESEARCH

[Threepenny Opera 1954, (Complete) Lotte Lenya, Bea Arthur, Scott Merrill]

THREEPENNY OPERA - ARCHIVE
You are about to hear an opera for beggars. Since this opera was conceived, with a splendor only a beggar could imagine. And since it had to be so cheap, even a beggar could afford it. It is called the Threepenny Opera.

TMAC
So Belafonte found a sense of belonging in the theater.

BELAFONTE
And those days are the days that gloriously shaped who I am. But I also found that I was quite amateur, and I needed to perfect this thing that I liked so much.

[MUSIC - Mack The Knife from Threepenny Opera]
‘Oh the shark has / pretty teeth dear…’

BELAFONTE
So I went to the New School of Social Research to study theater, because of the man by the name of Erwin Piscator...

[MUSIC]
‘...Just a jack knife / has Macheath dear…’

BELAFONTE
...Erwin Piscator was a German Jew, who fled Hitler and came to America because of the persecution his people was experiencing.

[MUSIC]
‘...With his teeth dear…’

BELAFONTE
He had been with a group in Germany called the Max Reinhardt theater and it was a great experimental modern theater of protest, and it produced people like Bertolt Brecht and the Brechtian style of theatre found space here in America.

[MUSIC]
‘...Wake up all you godless, wake up / come open your sinful blue eyes / with greed run if over your cup / so start the days blessing them lies…’

BELAFONTE
And I found myself in a class with Marlon Brando, and Walter Matthau, and here I was all of a sudden thrown into this place of endless expression and endless opportunity. And I made that my plunder. And the more I explored it the more I found compatibility with life.

[Threepenny Opera Polly's Song]

/// [BREAK] 30:09 ///

RECOGNITION AS A MAN

TMAC
I’m Terrance McKnight, and you’re listening to ‘Making Belafonte’.

[Harry Belafonte - In My Quiet Room]

BELAFONTE
It was out of an exercise in the class that I turned to singing. It was something we had to do, write a song. ‘I'm known as a Roamer. Wandering ‘round from town to town, trying hard to find a corner, where I can lay my weary head down…’. So I began writing songs. Never having any formal gift for that purpose. And I thought ‘Huh, people like it.’ So I wrote this at 19.  

[Harry Belafonte - Recognition]
‘...They took my chains, said they set me free / and good god tell me why did they lie to me....’

BELAFONTE
What I enjoyed was the recognition—and that was the title of the song!

[MUSIC]
‘...I want recognition as a man that’s all, I want recognition as a man / I wanna put my shoulder to the wheel of freedom / and to help it roll along…’

TMAC
So Belafonte comes out of the second World War, comes home, and is treated like less than human.

[MUSIC]
‘...I want recognition as a man that’s all, I want recognition as a man…’

TMAC
Recognition is something that he had to fight for. He was constantly struggling to be treated as a man. And it was hard for me to hear that—it’s Harry Belafonte!

BELAFONTE
And I’m here looking for recognition, making this protest song.

[MUSIC]

BELAFONTE
And the class delighted in it. I said, ‘I'll hang on to this for a while and see where it takes me’, Because I really had no identity.
 

LEAD BELLY

TMAC
So as Belafonte continued crafting his identity, he came across a folk musician who really opened his eyes.

BELAFONTE
So when I stepped into the space the thing that most influenced me was my discovery of Lead Belly.

[LEAD BELLY - Take This Hammer]
‘...Take this hammer, carry it to the captain / Take this hammer…’

TMAC
Lead Belly was a Louisiana blues man. He grew up about 200 miles away from where my family grew up in Mississippi, we’re right there on the Louisiana line.

[MUSIC]
‘...You tell him I’m gone…’

BELAFONTE
My first repertuar was made of Lead Belly songs, mostly chain gang material. And the chain gang conceivably became very attractive to me.

TMAC
And as I started listening to Lead Belly, I couldn't understand a word he was saying.

LEAD BELLY - ARCHIVE
And they just words, they would put together and sing a song, just a feeling they would make it up and they didn’t know what they’d done itself hardly but it’s just gettin’ a good feeling to em’ see? And that’s where the blues come from.

TMAC
With so many blacks coming from the south during the great migration, we were thought of as being backwards, being a little bit slow, a little bit unintelligent, not sophisticated, and then I began to get his humor, and his seriousness, and his protest, and his courage!

[MUSIC]
‘...Was I runnin’...’

BELAFONTE
And discovering Lead belly, I discovered the language of protest and the beauty of music. And I said, That's my man, I'm gonna do what he's doing. I found all these songs and they became critical to the expression of my own art.

BLACK VEGAS

[A Last Frontier Las Vegas, 1950]

TMAC
Belafonte's protest was not always in your face. Belafonte protested just by being there, just by him being in those places that you didn't expect to see a man like him.

ARCHIVE
Nevada, to the gold-rushes of ‘49, was a state of extreme horror, and where none by choice should ever tread.

BELAFONTE
I was called to come to Vegas.

ARCHIVE
The city in the desert, the city that never sleeps. Here you can gamble 24-hours a day, 365 days a year...

BELAFONTE
I got to the front desk, they wouldn't let me register. When I walked into the hotel from the airport, “We've arranged for you to live on the black side of Vegas.” I said, "The black side of Vegas. What's that?" And they showed me what it was, I got to this side of town and stayed in what they called a hotel. And I was absolutely stunned to see tin houses and degradation and I saw this whole thing and it just turned me upside down. I couldn't eat in the restaurant, couldn't this, couldn't that... When I walked out on the stage, and I looked out in the audience and all these white men in cowboy hats, and nobody gave a shit.

[Paul Robeson Oh! No John (2008 Remastered Version)]

BELAFONTE
I'm up there standing and looking my New York best, all handsome and ready to slay the night and I opened up with "oh no John, no John, no John, no..."

[MUSIC]
‘...Oh no John, no John, no John no…’

BELAFONTE
And the glasses got louder, the conversation got louder and I got off the stage that first act, the first act that night, and I said, "Something's wrong with this picture". This is just such a misfit. Since I know I'll never come back here, never be invited again, let me dig into some anger.

[Jerry (This Timber Got to Roll)]
‘...Timber, timber / Lord this timber gotta roll…’

BELAFONTE
I walked out. I looked mad. I was mad. For you people who don't really know what you're gettin, let me give you something you ain't gonna forget! —Jerry:

[MUSIC]
‘...Come on Jerry let's tow this load / Cryin' timber, timber Lord this timber gotta roll…’

BELAFONTE
’...Gotta roll…’ - it was a protest song, and I owned it with all the the vengeance I could.

[MUSIC]
‘...Work get heavy, ol' Jerry get sore / Pulled so much he won't pull no more / Cryin' timber, timber Lord this timber gotta roll…’

BELAFONTE
It was so loud and so aggressive. Forks dropped, heads turned and finally, I got their attention. And they listened, and they were respectful.

[MUSIC]
‘...Should have killed him 'cause he's so mean / Cryin' timber, timber Lord this timber gotta roll / Come on you “T” hang your soul / you know this timber gotta roll…’

BELAFONTE
And I said ‘OK, way to go’, and I just found all the songs that I could that were like that.

[MUSIC]
‘...Timber…’

MATILDA

TMAC
And then, after four or five intense protest songs…

[Matilda - Harry Belafonte (1953)]
‘...Matilda, Matilda…’

TMAC
Belafonte threw in a little relief, with Matilda.

[MUSIC]
‘...Matilda, Matilda, / Matilda, she take me money and run Venezuela, everybody / Matilda, Matilda, Matilda, she take me money and run Venezuela…’

BELAFONTE
And in Matilda, things began to lilt. I gave them a sense that there's a little bit more to my humanity than protest. And they began to delight in the Calypso.

[MUSIC]
‘...Everybody, Matilda, Matilda, / Matilda, she take me money and run Venezuela, once again now…’

BELAFONTE
In this context, I saw in it receptibility from the audience that said I should integrate more of this.

TMAC
So then, he put out a Calypso album, and it became the first in the history of music to sell a million copies in less than a year.

[MUSIC]
‘...Well, me friends, never to love again / All me money gone in vain heya / Matilda, she take me money and run Venezuela, Everybody…’

BELAFONTE
And that made me King Tut! A million copies! And I became who I became.

[MUSIC]
‘...She take me money and run Venezuela, sing a little softer / Matilda, Matilda (I’m feeling such pain) / Matilda, she take me money and run Venezuela, everybody / Matilda, Matilda, / Matilda, she take me money and run Venezuela…’

BELAFONTE
I developed this repertoire of Caribbean music that nobody else could sing or do. Very few people could emulate it. As a matter of fact, no one ever did.

BANANA BOAT

[Day-O (The Banana Boat Song) (Live)]

BELAFONTE
Then came Banana Boat.

[MUSIC]
‘...Daylight come and me wan' go home…’

BELAFONTE
And that song I found and delighted because I remembered it from my youth. And it came codified.

TMAC
Here he is singing about one thing, and it could sound like it’s fun and humorous, but you dig into the lyric, and there’s something very serious about it.

MUSIC IN CLEAR 25secs
‘…Work all night on a drink of rum / Daylight come and me wan' go home / Stack banana 'til de mornin' come / Daylight come and me wan' go home / Come, mister Tally-man, tally me banana / Daylight come and me wan' go home / He said come, mister Tally-man and tally me banana / Daylight come and me wan' go home…’

LYRICS
Lift six foot, seven foot, eight foot bunch, Daylight come and me wan' go home, Six foot, seven foot, eight foot bunch, Daylight come and me wan' go home...

BELAFONTE
Listen to the words: you would hear about black struggle, you hear about black pain. You hear about black exploitation... Always in these songs there's some sense of protest.

[MUSIC]
‘...Lift six hand, seven hand, eight hand bunch…’

BELAFONTE
My task was to serve it up to you subliminally.

[MUSIC]
‘...Day, me say day-o…’

BELAFONTE
What what does Day-O say? “Work all night on a drink a rum stuck banana tell them come Mr. Tally-man, tally me banana, Day O Day O Daylight come.” It's a plea for life! I’m glad you enjoy it, I’m glad it’s a part of the pop library, but it says something don’t it. Yeah. Okay. Here’s more.

[MUSIC]
‘...Hide the deadly black tarantula…’

TMAC
You know, having to work from sunup to sundown and just needing a little flex time. And, you know, perhaps the hope is that the lyric or the emotion of the song will rise to a level of consciousness where we're more empathetic towards one another.

[MUSIC]
‘...Daylight come and me wan' go home / Day-o, day-o / Daylight come and me wan' go home / Day, me say day, me say day, me say day, me say day, me say day-o / day light come and me wan’ go home’

[APPLAUSE]

CBS SHOW

[MUSIC - CBS SHOW]

ARCHIVE
Because of this special program,’Tonight With Belafonte’, Johnny Ringo and Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theater, will not be seen tonight.

TMAC
On his show, his 1959 show, his television show - he started showing a different side of beauty, you know oftentimes back then you know, the lighter you were as a black person-the more beautiful you were considered.

TONIGHT WITH BELAFONTE - CBS
Good evening and welcome to one of the most exciting television evenings of the year, Tonight with Belafonte, brought to you by Revlon. I’m Barbara Britten…

BELAFONTE
Revlon was the sponsor…

TONIGHT WITH BELAFONTE - CBS
This is the Revlon room…

BELAFONTE
He created many different shades of lipstick—many different shades of rouge and powder…

TONIGHT WITH BELAFONTE - CBS
...Just click and a new shade on a moment’s notice. And a beautiful case she’ll never replace!

BELAFONTE
And black women took delight in it, because of our multiracial colorations, everybody could find a colored Revlon. So this constituency was hugely black. And he decided to give me this platform as this expression of black beauty and stuff.

TONIGHT WITH BELAFONTE - CBS
Wouldn’t a sterling silver futurama sweep her off her feet, see what a difference futurama makes to a woman. She looks so smart, even putting on lipstick, and she knows it...

TMAC
You know, it was about the music but it was also, recasting this idea of what beautiful was.

[Tonight with Belafonte - Odetta - Jericho]
‘Joshua fit the battle of Jericho / My lord, Jericho, well-a, Jericho / Well-a Joshua fit the battle of Jericho / And them walls come tumblin' down…’

TMAC
So he started bringing on dark folks, chocolate folks, you know, Odetta.

ODETTA

BELAFONTE
I'll never forget, I mentioned that to CBS, “what are you going to do?", “Well I'm not quite sure yet, but I've picked somebody I want to work with”. "Who?" I said, “Odetta”.  

[MUSIC]
‘...A morning when Joshua fit the battle of Jericho / My lord, Jericho…’

BELAFONTE
I'll never forget the guys. They said, "What's an Odetta?!" [laughs] And I said, "She's an artist, she's a woman, she's a singer." Said, "I never heard of her". I said, "Well, you'll be hearing a lot about her, because I'm putting her on the show!"

MUSIC IN CLEAR 30secs
‘...He marched with a spear in his hand / Go blow them ram horns, Joshua said / 'Cause his battle is in my hands / A morning when Joshua fit…’

BELAFONTE
She sang what she sang, but the reviews were stunning, and especially about her.

[MUSIC]
‘...Well-a Joshua fit the battle of Jericho / And them walls come tumblin' down / And them walls come tumblin' down.’

BELAFONTE
And I just loved the platform because it gave me an opportunity to reveal all these unsuspecting joys in black culture that the country knew very little about. And the more I could reveal this, the power of this culture, the more it demanded to see more of me.

MISSISSIPPI STORY

TMAC
So during the time of Belafonte’s breakthrough show on television, with all of that celebration of black beauty and black culture, there was a real struggle going on in other parts of the country - especially, where my family comes from, in Mississippi.

[Odetta - Glory Glory]
‘Glory glory, hallelujah / When I laid my burden down…’

TMAC
Belafonte was so involved in the activist movement and voter registration, that my family, in Mississippi started and founded the NAACP chapter in Emmet County, down there in the 50s. Holding voter registrations at our, at our church, at our family church. And the Klan would come out there. And they came and busted up a meeting and they would collect license plates of everybody who showed up for the meetings—they took roll books. A guy named Bob Moses went down there and helped us with voter registration, he lived on our family farm, and in ‘64, Belafonte and Poitier went down to Greenwood to deliver some money.

BELAFONTE 2011 WNYC
Yes. I think we were filled with a lot of apprehension and anxiety. The mission itself was somewhat daunting: I was required to take an awful lot of money down to Greenwood, Mississippi for the black voters.

TMAC
They stayed I think in the state about 14 hours and traveled around a bit. And it was pretty scary times.

BELAFONTE 2011 WNYC
Going to the south, coming from the north and having the visibility that some of us did was always putting one’s selves in harm's way.

[MUSIC]
‘...Hallelujah, when I lay my burden down…’

TMAC
You know I had a cousin who was killed down there for registering to vote. His name was Herbert Lee, there’s a placard in town you know, with his name, and, he registered to vote. And he showed up in town, and got into a confrontation with one of his white neighbors, and the neighbor shot him. Right there in town, and his body just laid there for hours. And there were some folks around who, you know, were intimidated.

60 MINUTES

Lewis Allen witnessed a powerful state legislator by the name of E.H. Hurst shoot and kill an unarmed black man named Herbert Lee. Allen told his friends and family that he and other eyewitnesses had been pressured into lying about the shooting and saying that it was self-defense.

[Kevin Maynor Baritone - Another Man Done Gone]
‘...Mmmm, another man done gone…’

TMAC
He got away with it.

MUSIC IN CLEAR 25secs
‘...Mmmm, another man done gone, another man done gone, another man done gone…’  

CIVIL RIGHTS

BELAFONTE
And that’s when Sidney Poitier and I stepped in and said: ‘In our time, we will accept nothing that challenges our dignity, as a race, or as a people, or as individuals.’ And the best person to carry that message forward, with joy and incredible triumph, was Sidney.

[GEORGE WALKER Lyric for Strings (Original Version)]

SIDNEY POITIER - Civil Rights 1963
I became interested in the Civil Rights struggle out of a necessity to survive, that I involved myself in any activity that would ease my burden.

TMAC
You know, Dr. King talked a lot about our actors and musicians using their power, for something greater than themselves. And Belafonte did that man, he used his—he used his fame.

BELAFONTE - ARCHIVE
I think I have that responsibility by the very nature of what I am. When Dr. Martin Luther King came along, I threw in my lot with him, and I willingly permitted myself to be used.

[MUSIC]

ARCHIVE
On August 28th 1963, 200,000 Americans came to Washington to demand complete freedom for everyone. This is the story of that day.

TMAC
I mean, I think about that 1963 March on Washington. Just a pivotal point in American history. Well Belafonte was an architect of that.

BELAFONTE - CIVIL RIGHTS 1963
To be in Washington today was for me, an accumulation of a number of generations of black Americans who have been trying to appeal to the conscience of white supremacy.

[MUSIC]
‘...Keep your eyes on the path / Oh, lord…’

TMAC
Belafonte told Dr King that he could get some star talent behind it. He told him he could bring some of his actor friends. And so he put together a list and he started making calls and he went to Dr King with this list and Dr King was a little disappointed. You know, Dr King said ‘Well you know this is a good list but we need some folks on the other side…’. And so he called Marlon Brando.

MARLON BRANDO - Civil Rights 1963
And… I think that it’s easy to oversimplify this problem. The problem seems to me a subtler one and it has to do with hatred.

TMAC
And then he remembered that Marlon Brando and Charlton Heston were cool.

CHARLTON HESTON - CIVIL RIGHTS 1963 
Up until very recently, like most Americans I expressed my support of civil rights largely by talking about it at cocktail parties I'm afraid.

TMAC
So there you see it, right there at The March on Washington, this whole cadre of Hollywood stars including Marlon Brando and Charlton Heston.

BELAFONTE
What must be said, with all of Dr. king’s power and his beauty, it was not just he. It was the code of the day.

[Pete Seeger - We Shall Overcome]
‘We shall overcome / We shall overcome…’

TMAC
Belafonte was so involved with Civil Rights and social issues, and how he had established a trust fund to educate Dr Martin Luther King’s children, because they were really close.

BELAFONTE IN SWEDEN
It is at times like this, when our friends have extended their hand, to assist us in our struggle, that we know that in the final analysis. we shall overcome.

[MUSIC]
‘...We shall overcome someday…’

DR MARTIN LUTHER KING
We shall overcome! Deep in my heart I do believe, that we shall overcome! Sometimes we’ve had tears in our eyes when we’ve joined together to sing it, but we still decided to sing it, we shall overcome.

[MUSIC]
‘...We shall overcome some-day!’

[APPLAUSE]

TMAC
Until there is levity, until there is equality where we don’t even think about, or judge people based on their skin color, you know this is an act of protest, that I’m here doing this work. And even though the work is hard, even know it’s not always received with open arms, the point is that we have to celebrate in that protest!

[Belafonte: At Carnegie Hall - Matilda]

TMAC
There is something to be celebrated even by the opportunity to protest.

[MUSIC]

TMAC
That’s what I aspire to—you know, having impact, having strength, having integrity, standing for something, like Belafonte.

BELAFONTE 1967
And the reason I hang around is to make sure that in my old age (if I live to see it), I will be able to say that in my lifetime I did all that I could with what was it my disposal because I would hate for my children to look at me and to say, ‘Where were you during the moment of the great decision?’

BELAFONTE
I'm now 91, 92 shortly. Anyway, thank you for doing this.

MUSIC IN CLEAR 1min
‘...Matilda, Matilda she take me money and run Venezuela, Everybody / (Matilda) Sing out the chorus, / (Matilda) Sing a little louder, / Matilda, she take me money and run Venezuela. / Just the audience, (Matilda) A little louder, / (Matilda) It’s delicious! / Matilda, she take me money and run Venezuela. / Five hundred dollars, friends, I lost / Woman even sell me cat and horse, / don’t you know Matilda, she take me money and run Venezuela. / All together now…’

CREDITS

TMAC
‘Making Harry Belafonte’ was written and produced by myself and Curtis Macdonald, who also directed, edited and did sound design. Special thanks to WQXR’s Program Director Michael Shobe, our script editor Merrin Lazyan, The Smithsonian Institute, WNYC’s archivist Andy Lansett, and interns Sapir Rosenblatt and Greta Rainbow.

MUSIC
‘...Women over 40’

[LAUGHTER]

[MUSIC]
‘...Everybody!...’

TMAC
Thanks to Esther Adler, curator at the Museum of Modern Art and to Pamela and Harry Belafonte. I’m Terrance McKnight

[MUSIC]
‘...Matilda / Matilda / Matilda, She take me money and run Venezuela.’

[APPLAUSE]