User:KCottom425/Harry Belafonte

Involvement in the civil rights movement
Belafonte supported the civil rights movement in the 1950s and 1960s and was one of Martin Luther King Jr.'s confidants. After King had been arrested for his involvement in the Montgomery bus boycott in 1955, he began travelling to Northen cities to spread awareness and acquire donations for those struggling with social segregation and oppression in the South. The two met at the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem, New York in March of the following year. This interaction led to years of joint political activism and friendship. Belafonte joined King and his wife, Corretta Scott King, during the 1958 Washington D.C. Youth March for Integrated School, and in 1963 he backed King in conversations with Robert F. Kennedy, helping to organize the 1963 March on Washington --the sight of King's famous "I Have a Dream" Speech. He provided for King's family since King earned only $8,000 ($80,000 in today's time) a year as a preacher. As with many other civil rights activists, Belafonte was blacklisted during the McCarthy era. During the 1963 Birmingham campaign, Belafonte bailed King out of the Birmingham, Alabama jail and raised $50,000 to release other civil rights protesters. He contributed to the 1961 Freedom Rides, and supported voter registration drives He later recalled, "Paul Robeson had been my first great formative influence; you might say he gave me my backbone. Martin King was the second; he nourished my soul." Throughout his career, Belafonte was an advocate for political and humanitarian causes, such as the Anti-Apartheid Movement and USA for Africa. From 1987 until his death, he was a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador.

Involvement in the Kennedy campaign
In the 1960 election between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon, notable Black athlete Jackie Robinson advocated his support for the Nixon campaign. His reasoning for doing so was his perception of Kennedy’s championing of the Civil Rights movement as disingenuous. Because of Robison’s social impact on Black Americans during this time, the Democratic Party was determined to find a comparable Black endorser for Kennedy’s campaign. Fresh off of his win as the first Black man to receive an Emmy Award for his work on Tonight with Belafonte, Belafonte was Kennedy’s pick to fill the endorsement position.

The two met in Belafonte’s apartment, where Kennedy had hoped to convince Belafonte to mobilize support for his campaign. He thought to accomplish this by having Belafonte mobilize his influence amongst other Black entertainers of the era, persuading them to rally for Kennedy’s presidential nomination. Unexpectedly, Belafonte was not so impressed by the candidate, sharing the same sentiments as Robinson about Kennedy’s role (or lack thereof) in maintaining civil rights as an essential part of his campaign. To improve his engagement with Black America, Belafonte suggested to Kennedy that he contact Martin Luther King, making a connection to a viable source of leadership within the movement. Kennedy, though, was hesitant with this suggestion, questioning the social impact the preacher could make on the campaign. After much convincing–as Kennedy and King would later meet in June of 1960–the two men negotiated a deal that if Nixon became the nominee for the Republican party, Belafonte would support Kennedy’s presidential pursuits. Belafonte's endorsement of the campaign was further substantiated after both Kennedy brothers had worked to bail King out of jail in Atlanta after a sit-in, engaging with a Georgia judge.

Joining the Hollywood for Kennedy committee, Belafonte appeared in a 1960 campaign commercial for Democratic Presidential candidate John F. Kennedy. Unfortunately, the commercial was shown on television for one broadcasting. Belafonte also attended and performed at Kennedy’s inaugural ball. Kennedy later named Belafonte cultural advisor to the Peace Corps. Belafonte supported Lyndon B. Johnson for the 1964 United States presidential election.

The Baldwin-Kennedy Meeting
Renowned author James Baldwin contacted Belafonte three years after John F. Kennedy’s election. The purpose of the call was to invite Belafonte to a meeting to speak with Attorney General Robert Kennedy about the continued plight of the Black people in America. This event was known as the Baldwin-Kennedy Meeting. Belafonte met with twelve others, including Kennedy and Baldwin, in Kennedy’s Central Park South apartment on May 24th, 1963.

The other members included were Thais Aubrey, David Baldwin, Edwin Berry, Kenneth Clark, Eddie Fales, Lorraine Hansberry, Lena Horne, Clarence Jones, Burke Marshall, Henry Morgenthau III, June Shagaloff, Jerome Smith, and Rip Torn.

The guest engaged in cordial political and social conversation. Later, the talk led to an investigation of the position of Black people in the Vietnam War. Offended by Kennedy’s implication that Black men should serve in the war, Smith scolded the young Attorney General. Smith, a Black man and Civil Rights advocate, had been severely beaten in fighting for the movement's cause, which enforced his strong resistance to Kennedy’s assertion, frustrated that he should fight for a country that did not seem to want to fight for him.

A short time after the confrontation, Belafonte spoke with Kennedy. Belafonte then told him that even with the meeting’s tension, he needed to be in the presence of a man like Smith to understand Black people's frustration with patriotism that Kennedy and other leaders could not understand.