Harry Belafonte: Sing Your Song Storyville

There's a lot of people out here who are really pissed off!

We are angry, we're upset, we're sad.

We hold our children, wheel our wheelchairs,

we look around for some comfort and we don't find any.

-ALL: Yay!

-Freedom!

But we have to look to ourselves.

Because I think the last frontier

of truth and hope in this country

is the people themselves.

Somewhere in this moment,

my soul, somewhere in this moment,

all that I have known.

All that I have felt, all that I had experienced,

commanded me to say, "What do you do now?"

CROWD: Yay!

In this place,

much that happened to me in my early life

was sorted out.

I'd just got married, had a young child.

I met people here.

It was in this apartment

where all those things

set the course

for a new chapter in life.

I was born in Harlem.

At the time of my birth,

my father abandoned my mother,

who worked as a domestic.

In her concerns for us,

she sent my brother and myself

to live with relatives in Jamaica.

My mother was an immigrant woman from Jamaica.

People on that island did not fare well

in the early days of the century.

I would go on occasion

with my family, taking their goods to market.

I remember how gruelling the work was.

Almost all the songs that I later came to sing

were songs I'd heard among the peasants,

among the peoples of my family at that time.

# Day da light and me wan go home... #

My mother made me understand there was nothing in life

that could not be attained, that we could not aspire to.

And I remember her instructions.

That I should never, ever awaken in a day

where there wasn't something in our agenda

that would help set the course

of the undermining of injustice.

It was never my intention to be a singer.

But, as fate would have it,

my job was as a janitor's assistant.

One day I was asked to fix a Venetian blind for a tenant.

As a gratuity, I was given two tickets to the American Negro theatre.

When the theatre lights came down and the curtains opened,

the play began, and never, ever

in my life have I had an experience

that so transfixed me.

The theatre was a place

of social truth.

It was a place of power.

It carried thoughts and images that could influence people profoundly.

I tried to protect you. Lord knows, I tried.

Ma!

I'll be strong, Ma. Everything will turn out all right, cos I'll make it with these!

'An actor in the theatre - that's where I wanted to go.'

I became part of the American Negro Theatre.

That's where I met Brock Peters and Sidney Poitier.

Right after that, I went for further study at the New School for Social Research.

In my class was Walter Matthau.

Another was Marlon Brando,

and Bernie Bernard Schwartz, better known as Tony Curtis.

It was in the theatre as an actor that I discovered singing.

# You twirl the world on your finger

# Dear, you don't wander to linger... #

I was headed on the path to be a jazz singer.

I felt myself very ill-placed.

I was making a living as a singer and not really enjoying it

as much as I had hoped I would be able to.

# Lean on me... #

One night I happened to go to the Village Vanguard,

and when I went to the Vanguard,

I saw a man by the name of Huddie Ledbetter.

# One Sunday morning, Lord, Lord, Lord

# The preacher went a-hunting Lord, Lord, Lord

# He carried along his shotgun Lord, Lord, Lord... #

He sang songs in a way that

was absolutely magical for me.

He told me that he was going to

the Library of Congress to search out

old folk songs and various and sundry kinds of music.

# Water boy

# Where are you hidin'? #

He had something in the back of his mind.

# There ain't no sweat, boy

# That's on this mountain

# That run like mine, boy

# That run like mine... #

'As important as the Library of Congress was,

'equally important was my discovery of Paul Robeson.'

# Ole man river, that ole man river

# He must know somethin'... #

His strength, his power, the way he used his life as an artist,

had profound impact on me.

# Keep fightin' until I'm dyin'... #

Out of that came the true, true artistry of Harry Belafonte.

# Sylvie

# Sylvie

# I'm so hot and dry... #

One day, there I was on the stage of the Village Vanguard.

Paul Robeson came to see me.

Mr Robeson was a universal force, who for me filled time and space...

like no-one else.

# Sylvie

# Bring me little water

# Now... #

At the end of my performance, he came backstage,

and simply said, "Get them to sing your song...

"and they'll want to know who you are."

ANNOUNCER: The June Taylor Dancers with Harry Belafonte.

# Hold him, Joe, hold him, Joe

# Hold him, Joe, but don't let him go

# Hold him, Joe, I say hold him, Joe

# Hold him, Joe, but don't let him go... #

For me, new doors were opening.

A man by the name of John Murray Anderson

invited me to do a play on Broadway

called John Murray Anderson's Almanac.

# Mark Twain!

# Four fathoms off the starboard bow... #

The reviews were stunning.

As a consequence, I got the Antoinette Perry Award, a Tony.

# Mark Twain. #

During the time of my emergence,

there were not just a normal...

goals set for ourselves,

to climb up the career ladder.

There were bigger concerns.

I did a show, Marge & Gower Champion,

called 3 For Tonight.

We toured America, only to find out

many of the places would not accept an inter-racial group.

I didn't realise, growing up in California,

what a problem it might be if we went south of the Mason-Dixon line.

# Oh, when the saints go marching in

# Oh, when the saints go marching in

# I want to be in that number... #

The pit-stops were embarrassing. Harry was not allowed

at the same places as the rest of the cast.

# When the saints go marching in... #

I remember getting off the bus to go to the bathroom

and as I walked into the men's room,

I heard a voice say, "You let go of a drop, you're a dead nigger."

I turned around and took a look and there was a state trooper.

I looked at him, and the humiliation of it...

I never had a feeling like that before in my life.

I guess my urine had better sense than I did cos it just backed up.

And I didn't let go a drop.

And I walked back on that bus,

And I just sat there for the rest of that tour

devastated by the experience.

Without really proselytising in any way,

we made quite a statement.

Harry was staying with some black newspaper people

in Richmond, Virginia.

I remember him coming back and telling us

they all applauded when he came in

and one of the men said, "You sure made history in Richmond tonight."

Harry said, "What did I do?"

He said, "You held a white woman's hand...

"in a segregated house, and nothing happened."

# When the saints go marching in

# When the saints go marching in

# I want to be in that number... #

That was the climate of the mood in America.

And here I was

with a lot of support from people who had to negotiate

moving into these places for the first time,

breaking down these barriers.

When I first worked Las Vegas,

in a place called the Thunderbird,

into the lobby, the doorman looked at me in a very strange way.

I was told that I couldn't come into the hotel through the front door.

That I'd be living in the black section

of Las Vegas.

I could not eat in the main dining room,

and when I suggested that this whole ritual would not be workable,

I was informed that the only way I would leave Las Vegas,

if I didn't fulfil that contract,

would be in a box.

Harry was headlining.

About the third day in Vegas,

there was a knock on the door...

# Who's gonna be your man? #

..really early, like 11 in the morning.

# Who's gonna be your man? #

I go to the door and it's Harry

in a bathrobe with a towel over himself, and bare legs,

and I said, "What's happening?"

He said, "We're going to the pool." I said, "Oh, my God."

Up on these balconies, heavy-set guys started to appear,

looking down,

like, "What?! Ay!"

They could have shot him, for godsakes.

I know it sounds dramatic but those were very scary days.

He goes all the way around, gets up on the diving board,

and walked to the end of it and stood there.

And just looked around with that smile.

And then did this perfect dive.

Almost everybody had gotten out of the pool.

He came up into an empty pool.

He's standing there alone...

and all of a sudden,

we realised that men were coming to the edge of the pool

with cameras - we're talking about the people who were

staying in the hotel.

They were saying, "Harry, Mr Belafonte.

"Would you mind if...honey, honey."

And the wife would jump in the pool.

The children, people started to jump in the pool.

Harry stood there and graciously, for about half an hour,

put his arms around everybody.

And people took all these photographs.

And I looked up, and the guys were disappearing off the balconies...

until it was empty on those balconies.

Nothing he did surprised me...

as far as his daring participating in history.

We all had different kinds of experiences rooted in race.

Sammy Davis, Jr, Nat "King" Cole,

Louis Armstrong, Lena Horne.

All of us were battling the walls of racist resistance.

# I wonder why nobody don't like me

# Or is it a fact that I'm ugly?

# I wonder why nobody don't like me

# Or is it a fact that I'm ugly? #

You'd see Harry Belafonte on TV,

and you'd call your neighbour, "Coloured on TV!"

and let them know, because it was so rare.

# I say let us put man and woman together

# To find out which one is smarter... #

Even in that grainy black-and-white early TV,

his personality came out,

and you liked that personality and you wanted more of it.

As I sang, my popularity began to grow.

Public reference to my political activism

became more evident.

My activism was rooted in the experiences that I had

during the Second World War as a munitions loader.

A job reserved for mostly black sailors.

We believed in the cause.

For us, it was a lot more than Germany and Hitler.

It was about America, too.

I felt very strongly we would have the right to vote.

The right to live where we wanted.

The right to be part of a level playing field, but at the end of the war,

there was still segregation, we were still being lynched,

we were still being harassed and murdered,

and so we belonged to everything we could belong to,

to overthrow this relentless cruelty of racist oppression.

In doing that, the House of Un-American Activities Committee

called us unpatriotic.

Let's string 'em up right now!

Branded us as Communists.

Communism is an evil and malignant way of life.

It reveals a condition akin to disease

that spreads like an epidemic, and like an epidemic,

a quarantine is necessary to keep it from infecting this nation.

What I didn't know was I was part of a large group of American citizens

being caught in the net of Federal scrutiny.

The FBI began moving everywhere,

then one day, while I was away on tour, they came to my home.

They caught my young bride in the middle of that terror, telling her

that I was seeking to do harm to the nation.

This bit of FBI drama took its toll.

It was hard on Marguerite.

She had difficulty believing

that the United States government would have spent

so much time making up these stories

about a singer if there wasn't in fact some truth to it.

I could say nothing to her that would ease her doubt or confusion.

I could not give up my social activism, I couldn't do that.

And my relationship with Paul Robeson and others...

This haunted us for the rest of our time together...

and would eventually result in the demise of our marriage.

While all of this mischief was going on,

Marguerite and I brought into the world

our first-born, Adrienne.

And not too long after that, our Shari.

# I peaked in to say goodnight... #

A lot of songs that I sang were, early on, directed at my children.

Perhaps the most significant was Scarlet Ribbons.

# Lovely ribbons, scarlet ribbons

# Scarlet ribbons for her hair... #

This song found its way into the hearts of the American people.

It would show another dimension to who I was.

Scarlet Ribbons was the first record that gave me

national recognition.

Here's one of the great artists of our country,

and one of the greatest artists of the world.

Here is Harry Belafonte.

Ladies and gentlemen, Harry Belafonte.

Mr Harry Belafonte.

It says here tonight we're going to have the fabulous Harry Belafonte. Here he comes!

# Coconut woman is calling out And everyday you can hear her shout

# Coconut woman is calling out

# And everyday you can hear her shout...#

Harry researched all this great calypso music

and hit upon some of those songs that were big.

Then Harry decided to tighten the pants a little bit

and undo that shirt,

and the rest is history!

APPLAUSE AND CHEERING

Harry, I want to present you with this RCA Victor long-playing record

for being the first performer to sell over a million copies

of a single album, ladies and gentlemen.

And that's not all.

You've been on the move so much that RCA Victor

has not had a chance to present you with this gold record

saluting you as the first artist to sell a million copies of a single record in England,

and that's not all!

The other is for your memorable, million-selling Day-O!

# Day-O! Day-O!

# Daylight come and me wan go home

# Day, me say day, me say day, me say day, me say day... #

It was this guy who was this gorgeous human being,

and he'd say, "Daylight come and I want to go home."

One lady in the back stood up and says, "Don't go, Harry!"

Women went crazy over this guy.

Forget lingerie, they was throwing body parts!

He was this idol. "Ah!"

So there were screaming crowds

and I remember these bodyguard people pushing us through.

I'm going, "What's this about? Who are these people and why

"are they grabbing at my dad?"

And all of them were little teenybopper white girls.

They were just going insane over him

cos he was an idol.

# Down the way where the nights are gay

# And the sun shines daily on the mountaintop

# I took a trip on a sailing ship

# And when I reached Jamaica I made a stop

# But I'm sad to say I'm on my way

# Won't be back for many a day

# My heart is down, my head is turning around

# Had to leave a little girl in Kingston town... #

The success that I was experiencing in my musical career

led me to Hollywood.

In my first experience with the Hollywood adventure,

I was working on the film Bright Road.

A story of a dysfunctional child in a small Southern town.

I was filming with Dorothy Dandridge,

our first time together.

But to break in on the Hollywood scene was no easy trick.

While working on the film,

I stayed at the home of a friend in Beverly Hills.

One night after dinner,

I thought I'd take a walk to get a bit of fresh air.

Out of nowhere, the police descended on me.

Having broken no law,

it was obvious my crime

was walking in Beverly Hills after dark

while being black.

After that,

I always looked at Hollywood

through filtered glasses.

COMMENTATOR: A galaxy of stars arrive

for the Los Angeles premiere of the 20th Century Fox

musical spectacular Carmen Jones.

On hand, the film's director, Otto Preminger.

Otto Preminger saw the chemistry between Dorothy Dandridge

and myself.

And he cast us in Carmen Jones.

# Love's a baby that grows up wild... #

Carmen Jones was a black film.

It was a very emotional experience

for all of us to have to deal with the fact that we knew

we were renting space.

We were not there because we would have film careers.

# If I love you, dat's de end of you. #

I then went on to other films.

And struggled with new taboos.

# This is my island in the sun

# Where my people have toiled since time begun... #

Because a young, handsome black man

and a very beautiful young woman, blonde, etcetera

had this romantic relationship,

even though the romance on screen, in no form or fashion,

was shown graphically,

a lot of people in the south, especially,

objected to it quite strenuously, to say the least.

Instead of defeating the picture,

diminishing its value...

they aroused a whole crowd

of millions of people who, out of curiosity,

wanted to see it.

I found myself in the battle with Hollywood,

the battle with content and the battle with style,

and the battle with the issues of race.

I decided to go tenaciously after making independent films

with a black perspective.

'I put together a company called HarBel.'

I know you're there!

I can feel you all staring at me!

HIS VOICE ECHOES

Come out!

GUN FIRES

The World, the Flesh, and the Devil -

a story of three people

who are the last on Earth to survive a nuclear holocaust.

MGM brought me the script.

'I was absolutely blown away.'

If you're squeamish about words, I'm "coloured."

And if you face facts, I'm a Negro.

If you're a polite Southerner, I'm a "negra."

And I'm a "nigger" if you're not!

'In the middle of making the film,

'MGM stopped the production.

'They changed the script.

'Hollywood could not permit the white leading lady

'and the black leading man

'to truly have a love scene.'

CLOCK CHIMES

# What's the matter, pretty baby?

# Tell me, what's your daddy done? #

'Odds Against Tomorrow stepped into the fray.

'The story was about a bank heist.

'Central to the film's power

'was the issue of race.

'Without the help of director Bobby Wise

'and friend like Robert Ryan, Shelley Winters and Ed Begley,

'the film would not have been made.'

GUNSHOT

These are the two that did it.

Which is which?

Take your pick.

Harry gave us a piece of his fire

so that we could help ourselves in a business that did not acknowledge us

in a manner that we wished to be acknowledged.

That was very important, it gave us all strength.

# Lift 'em up and put 'em down

# Marching all around the town... #

During the time of the shooting of Carmen Jones,

Marlon Brando and I were both on the same lot.

Marlon was shooting his film Desiree,

where he played Napoleon.

His girlfriend was visiting.

He would not be able to take her to the commissary for lunch,

and would I?

And I said, "Yeah."

When she came on the set,

she really kind of glowed.

There was a beautiful cadence to her movement.

# And I love you so... #

I was hooked. I liked her. I liked her style.

She was a dancer with the Katherine Dunham Company.

When we married, it was a kind of shocking thing to people

that my next engagement was going to be a white woman.

There were sections of the public who were absolutely vicious.

I had never heard that kind of cruelty.

I was not expecting it to be that kind of response.

When I gave birth to David, I got a lot of hate mail

through the hospital, "Congratulations

"on your nigger baby."

Thrilling things like that(!) It was very upsetting.

# The day you took my hand. #

Out of every negative...if anything,

he was fired on with even more fervour.

One of the things that was truly binding

was that she came to the table fully political.

We talked a great deal about politics, about the labour unions,

and about show business.

We had so many things in common

that really had nothing to do with sex or love or anything.

It just gave such a huge dimension to our relationship.

# Oh, freedom!

# Oh, freedom! #

Dr King called me

and said, "I'd like very much to have a chat with you.

"It won't take long."

At the end of almost four hours,

we emerged from the room.

I knew then that I would for ever be in his service,

and I understood the length of our journey

and how perilous it would be.

Harry credits Martin as having been that person

that really inspired him and motivated him.

And I think Harry motivated Martin in many ways,

because he was a man who didn't have to get involved,

and who did.

Why do you follow Dr Martin Luther King?

As he unfolded his philosophy of non-violence

and his philosophy of brotherhood and togetherness,

I swiftly gravitated

to this philosophy.

Martin was very often able to go to Harry's apartment,

and that in itself gave him time to get away from things,

and to be relaxed and to discuss, in a quite place.

Harry wanted to help Martin,

and in whatever he way he could,

to fulfil his dream because he shared that dream.

My name is Harry Belafonte.

I'm an artist and I'm not a politician.

But like most Americans, I have a great interest

in the political and economic destiny of my country.

I'm seated here with Senator Jack Kennedy.

As a Negro and as an American,

I have many questions and I'm sure everyone does.

I want to make it very clear, Harry, that on this question

of equality of opportunity for all Americans,

whether in the field of civil rights, minimum wages,

better housing,

better working conditions, jobs,

I stand for these things.

I thought Kennedy should be taking a look

at the movement, which he did not know too much about...

much to my surprise.

I suggested to the young senator

that he best pay attention,

cos Dr Martin Luther King

was where the Democratic Party should be focussing.

What was key to his relationship with the black vote

was the following.

Dr King got arrested...

for having violated a traffic sign.

For this very minor infraction,

they sentenced him to the chain gang.

And that sent a shock of horror

through all of us.

This concern for his welfare was very much

in the forefront of our thinking.

And we made appeals to both candidates.

Nixon ignored us altogether.

The Kennedys wrestled with it.

Bobby Kennedy

negotiated with the state of Georgia.

'That led to the charges being dismissed.'

There are many Negroes in America who still do not have

the right to vote.

There are many of us who do,

and I think that we should use that right.

I'm voting for Senator Jack Kennedy.

How about you?

'It was a time of great expectations.

'Things were changing socially and politically.'

# Things looked tough

# Believe it or not

# But Jack was calm

# And Jack said, "I've got

# "My Bobby..." #

LAUGHTER

# "My Bobby"

# And Bobby

# Played it...cool. #

'The world was in the throes of a new day.'

Good evening, and welcome to one of the most exciting television

evenings of the year.

Tonight With Belafonte, brought to you by Revlon.

There was an offer from CBS and from the sponsor, Revlon.

I would have one hour on air,

the space was mine and the choice of content.

The question for me

was where could television culture in America be taken?

'We found the reward

'buried in the heart of black folklore.'

# I don't want no bald-headed woman

# She too mean, Lord, Lordy, she too mean... #

# There's a hole in the bucket, dear Liza, dear Liza

# There's a hole in the bucket, dear Liza, a hole... #

'For our dared adventure, we won the Emmy.'

My agent called me.

One great night of television is worth another.

Revlon ordered five more shows.

This time, we chose to show the Great American Mosaic.

It resided in one postal zone,

New York 19.

# Tell me where sister Susie done gone

# Sister Susie done gone, sister Susie done gone... #

# Hava nagila, hava nagila

# Hava nagila, ve-nis' mecha.

# Hava nagila, hava nagila

# Hava nagila, ve-nis' mecha... #

# Li'l Liza Jane... #

'The evening received incredible critical reviews.

'We were nominated for everything under the sun.'

# Li'l Liza Jae... #

Then I got a call.

The president of the company told me that they had problems.

The show was mixed racially,

the stations in the South were going to pull out.

They wanted no white artists involved.

It was OK for Harry to be black,

but everybody else had to be black, or white, I suppose,

not integrated, and Harry, bless his soul, said,

"That's it. You don't want it, we won't do it."

Thank you for being with us. See you around.

'The whole world was experiencing a new consciousness.

'I could not acquiesce. I would not change the format.

'And I left.'

On the international music scene, demands were escalating.

The international community began to vigorously express its interests.

I began playing not only theatres, but large stadiums

of Europe, Asia, Latin America, Australia,

Germany, France, everywhere.

By this time, my own emotional conflict,

my own inner peace

was in such upheaval and disarray.

that I began to look for

voices of wisdom and ways in which to

talk to somebody to help walk me through this

hugely complicated period of my life.

In my need to find a new direction,

I turned to the idea of psychoanalysis.

Dr Janet Alterman Kennedy came to my attention.

I became her patient.

While discussing the chaotic state of my financial affairs,

she said, "I'd recommend that you visit my husband, Jay,

"and see if he's be able to guide you."

They had a real operation going between the two of them.

Janet would woo them into psychotherapy,

well-known people in the business,

and then through that process,

she would advise them

to have her husband be their manager.

Now Tommy, meet 49-year-old Jay Kennedy,

he's from New York City.

When I met Jay Richard Kennedy, he sounded quite plausible.

People came to me for advice.

He had an office on Wall St.

..On the advisory committee of American industry.

He had a book out called Prince Bart.

I wrote my way into a motion picture...

called I'll Cry Tomorrow.

..and a radio show.

He had all of these credentials

that led me to invest in him and let him in

on my life and my money.

Finally I wound up having him as my manager.

He had me mesmerised a little bit,

but there's something about this guy that makes me nervous.

But I was still just a publicist,

so I didn't want to get involved, really.

As time progressed,

I began to become...

uncomfortable

with Janet Kennedy's

psychiatric pursuit.

She began to press me for more detail

about my relationships with people

who came from the progressive movement.

People who were just powerful liberals.

And I was deeply concerned about how

the information would be used.

I was suspicious of Janet, no question.

I don't think it's the function

of an analyst

to work like she's working.

Harry, too, began to question it.

He decided to do a dossier

on them.

Harry called me on the phone and he said,

"Can you come to Chicago?" I said, "What are you whispering for?"

He said, "His name isn't really Jay Richard Kennedy.'

His name was Solomonick, not Kennedy.

And he was deeply connected to the FBI

and the CIA, and Jay Richard Kennedy,

in fact, was an informant.

Harry, having been blacklisted, that's all he needed to hear, right?

It was just terrible.

A terrible, terrible experience.

It sounded like one of these really

strange espionage stories to me.

It had all kinds of cloak-and-dagger feeling about it.

I confronted the Kennedys,

and after a long and bitter exchange,

it ended, or so I thought.

I don't know the full extent of what Solomonick

told the FBI.

I refused to let him, and all that he was doing, derail me.

I went on with my life.

I began focussing more intensely on Africa,

and received enormous encouragement from a woman who would now

become a friend of mine, by the name of Eleanor Roosevelt.

My very first experience with Africa

was the movies.

HE YELLS

Tarzan Of The Apes.

The one thing I came to know when I left that movie house

was the last thing I wanted to be

was an African.

But thanks to Paul Robeson and others,

and the gathering was held at Mrs Roosevelt's home,

I came to know Africa.

I had a chance to meet a lot of young leaders...

from all over the world

who were very much engaged in liberation work

and movements.

I grew particularly close to feelings for Africa that

I might otherwise never have known.

One of the men I met was a young Kenyan by the name of Tom Mboya.

He was an important liberator

in the struggle for independence

against the British.

Tom Mboya, along with Jackie Robinson and myself,

a wonderful woman by the name of Cora Weiss,

brought young Kenyan students to America.

Our first airlift was 81 students.

Among our many students who benefited from this programme,

Barack Obama, Sr was one of them.

We placed them in universities all over America,

paid for their tuition

and worked tenaciously with Tom Mboya

for Kenya's future development.

In return for their education,

they were to go back to help build their nation.

It was a rich human harvest for Kenya.

CHILDREN SING IN SWAHILI

I'd been very much committed to the struggle of a lot of African

countries at the dawning of their independence.

Guinea, Tanzania, Ghana.

Have you been to South Africa recently?

Well, I've never been to South Africa.

As a matter of fact, no person of colour is permitted

to go to South Africa unless you go as a bonded servant.

CHANTING AND SINGING

SCREAMING

The first real focus for me on South Africa

was when South African apartheid government began intensifying

its control and suppression on the South African people.

We then began to hear about Mandela.

One of the early leaders of South African resistance to apartheid.

CHANTING

When I heard about the arrest of Nelson Mandela, I committed to use

the power of art as an instrument of resistance and rebellion.

SHE SINGS IN SWAHILI

I saw a film called Come Back Africa,

a documentary that was one of the first to come out of South Africa

that clearly presented the case

for how vicious the apartheid oppression was.

In that film was a remarkable woman.

THEY SING

And I instantly understood that here was the voice of Africa.

In the last three years I have made two trips around the world.

On both occasions I was privileged

to perform in most of the major capitals.

In a lot of these countries I talked with and performed

with many, many other artists.

Some of them were wonderful,

such as the artist you're about to see now.

A young lady from South Africa, Miss Miriam Makeba.

APPLAUSE

He decided we should record an album.

# Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah Yeah, yeah. #

He said that, you know, people in America don't know much about Africa.

And this album doesn't have one English song on it.

THEY SING IN SWAHILI

I sang the songs of rebellion.

And they're songs of rejoicing.

And songs of love.

Yes!

The album won a Grammy Award on it.

SHE SINGS

The album was banned in South Africa.

I still go around and I meet people who say, "Can I please hug you?",

and they hug me and they say, "You know,

"I went to jail for listening to your record with Belafonte."

Belafonte means a lot to people, struggling people around the world,

because he took all our struggles and made them his own.

SONG: "Give Us Our Land"

I saw great similarity between what Africans were experiencing

and what African Americans were experiencing here in America.

SONG: "Give Us Our Land"

Will you please welcome Senator Robert F Kennedy.

APPLAUSE

By the time 1961 comes around, Harry serves as a go-between

between the movement and the Kennedy administration.

He played this important role between we who thought

we were the most militant people on Earth and the Kennedy administration,

whom we thought were probably much more conservative than they needed to be.

When Bobby Kennedy was made Attorney-General,

it sent a shudder over many of us.

He was an attorney for the House on Un-American Activities Committee

that had put together this very arbitrary list of people whom

they thought were Communists, and went after them.

He had evidenced no particular regard for black people

and Dr King made the following observation.

"Somewhere in this man sits good.

"Our task is to find his moral centre and win him to our cause."

Harry and a number of celebrities had a meeting

with Robert Kennedy in New York.

They were frustrated that Robert Kennedy didn't understand

the intensity of feeling against the administration.

One young man from SNCC, Jerome Smith,

said to Bobby Kennedy, "You're asking us,

"young, black Americans who see they are struggling in this

"country for our rights...to pick up arms, to go defend this America.

"Let me tell you something, when I pick up a gun, you can rest

"assured that a hard, hard time is coming behind all this."

This really jolted Bobby Kennedy. It became the turning point

time and time again in hearing voices of the underclass.

-You haven't had lunch yet?

-No.

The downtrodden really began to provoke him.

I've seen despair and this hopelessness and I've seen children who were starving to death

in the United States. I read about children who are starving to death,

but I've seen children who are starving to death.

And as the report just said,

they will never recover mentally after the age of four.

They began to sense some shift taking place.

By no means clearly defined, but something was happening.

MUSIC

# Amen

# Amen #

# Amen

# Amen, Amen

# Sing it...

# Amen

# Amen

# Amen

# Amen, Amen

# Hallelujah!

# Amen!

# Baby!

# Amen for ever

# Amen... #

In this time, the movement was beginning to intensify.

# Amen. #

And my ability to be able to call upon all the artists

who unflinchingly gave themselves in the support of our movement was

one of the most powerful pieces of strategy that we had.

We will march in Washington on August 28th, 1963,

along with hundreds of thousands of our fellow Americans

who believe in equal opportunity and freedom for us all.

We will march because we recognise the events of the summer of 1963

is among the most significant we have lived through.

# I'm on my way

# And I won't turn back

# I'm on my way

# And I won't turn back. #

The Kennedys were against it. They tried to stop the march.

Harry is trying to tell them it's not going to be so bad.

"Don't worry about it.

"I'm going to gather as many celebrities as I can to lend

"a peaceful presence there."

And you will participate fully and whatever

we are capable of doing as artists,

as a group to help propagandise the civil rights revolution.

# We shall overcome. #

To look out into that group and to see the mixture of black

and white, which so powerfully portrayed our vision

of integration, it was stunning.

There I was, straddling all these worlds,

and my children caught in it.

Gina, my youngest, and all the others,

became the beneficiaries of all the diversity that made up the family.

The love of my four children for each other, their closeness,

I ascribed to their mothers, Marguerite and Julie.

He probably, perhaps, felt guilty for the time that he wasn't there,

so he would go overboard.

He gave his all when he was at home playing with the children, yes.

Almost too much.

I was constantly preoccupied with how I would be as a father

and what I would do to service my children in ways that

I had not experienced in my own life.

This preoccupation found itself having a huge influence

on the choices that I made artistically.

I sang songs of humour, play songs, children's songs.

# I was walking down the road

# And I saw me a little old bowl. #

The first time I saw Dad on television, I don't remember

what the show was, but I remember sort of walking around the TV trying

to figure out how my dad got into this little box.

# And I made me a little old seat. #

And very upset that he was in there and not outside with me.

# And everybody I meet

# Wants to know how many could sit on that seat. #

Just flashes in my head. Coming and going.

# Was it one?

# I said, mo yet. #

He'd come home from trips and would come in to say hello

and wake me up out of a slumber or hugs and kisses goodbye.

# Was it two?

# I said, mo yet. #

Harry was there the best way he could be,

so I never held it against him.

Maybe I did when I was six or seven or eight, going, "Whatever."

# Was it four?

# I said, mo yet. #

He, I'm sure, has had a lot more demons in terms of not being

there for me and for Adrian the way he feels he should've been there.

# How about six?

# I said, mo yet, mo yet. #

Even though he was physically there in the house sometimes,

he wasn't really there.

He was very preoccupied with other things.

# Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four. #

And in retrospect I can look back and say, "Well, of course."

I mean, he was movement building.

# Only one could sit on that seat. #

You had two families. You've got us and you've got the family of man.

And you're running back and forth between the two like a lunatic.

# His name was Moyet. #

CHILDREN GROAN

How do I negotiate my way with all of this?

I understood the title of father.

I understood the sense of responsibility to provide,

to never let anybody want.

But as events unfolded

and things escalated in the civil rights movement, I was conflicted.

We started to move into places that were way beyond any place

we thought we would go.

# Wake up, wake up

# Darling Cora. #

Dr King even said, "We are so short on resources,

"so short on the capacity to galvanise forces to do things

"that we need to have you

"and others strategically positioned for what we may face."

# I got to move on down the line. #

# I don't know why

# Darling Cora

# Don't know what the reason can be

# But I've never yet found a single town

# Where me and the boss man agree. #

In Mississippi, in the summer of 1964,

the movement brought white volunteers, almost 1,000 of them,

down to register the black voters.

They were told it was dangerous.

And for that whole summer there were beatings every day.

What is developing in the state of Mississippi

is somewhat of a police state.

Outright violent, fascist

and totalitarian conditions exist in the state.

And on June 21, three of the volunteers,

Schwerner, Chaney and Goodman, disappeared.

And we are very much concerned about the whereabouts

of the three workers in the Summer Project.

Three days after they discovered the bodies of Schwerner, Chaney

and Goodman, on August 4, Harry was asked to take money into Mississippi.

When I first got called about coming down and bringing money,

I call Sidney and I said to him,

"Listen up. What are you doing this weekend?"

And he said, "Nothing, man. I'm free."

And I said, "Well, I've got something I've got to do.

"I'd like you to go with me."

And I said, "I've got to go to Greenwood, Mississippi."

And he says, "Uh-huh.

"Listen, it's OK. I'm going with you.

"But after we do this, I want to tell you something.

"Never ever call me again."

He said to me that he was going to speak with Robert Kennedy

to let him know that we would be coming down.

I mean, we were two fairly well-known people. And we might be targets.

"Trust me, man. It's going to be all right.

"I talked to Burke Marshall, talked to the Justice Department.

"They'll have marshals."

So we get out. We left from Newark.

And from Newark, we went to Jackson. And we got on this little plane.

And when we landed in Greenwood, it was empty.

All we saw was one black man in the whole airport.

Pushing a broom, cleaning up the place.

And I never forget, Sidney looked at him

and looked around a little longer.

And he says, "That don't look like no FBI agent."

"That isn't one of us in disguise. Where's all these marshals?"

We got into the cars and started up.

All of a sudden, these headlights went on.

And I turned to Sidney and said, "There is the protection."

And Willie Blue said, "Marshals my ass."

-THEY LAUGH

-He said, "That's the Klan."

We knew they were going to try something.

And we figured that they weren't going to do it

inside the airport where too many people would see.

The front car was a pickup truck.

And I'll never forget, the pickup truck had

a big two-by-four block of wood strapped to the bumper.

And as they came up behind the second car, they kept ramming it.

That was one of their most common tactics.

They hadn't really started shooting in cars, you know,

they would run us off the road.

And my position on it was, they're going to have to kill me

before they get around me.

There is nobody coming up beside me.

That's not in the equation. I had made up my mind on that one.

And what happened was,

a bunch of cars came out of Greenwood with SNCC volunteers

and other people, and they came barrelling down the highway.

And they met up with us.

And we all got into a cavalcade and drove into Greenwood.

To me, that was our greatest moment. To me, I knew we had arrived.

There wasn't nobody fitting to harm you guys. It would have been a war.

HE LAUGHS

DOG BARKS

Before we got to Greenwood and gave the money,

they decided to put us up in this little house.

And outside, one of the people sitting there had a shotgun.

Harry, he stayed in this house with the family in the Delta.

It was so dangerous.

The house had been fired on.

He wanted to identify, not just with us, with local people.

But he also wanted to bring us a sense of hope that "we're with you."

And I'll never ever forget that.

All the young men and women in SNCC

were absolutely badgered to death and weary.

And what they needed was to get away.

I felt that what would make a significant difference

was for us to pay a visit to Africa.

Harry got out there, somehow and some way raised the money,

or donated the money, but he made it possible for 13 of us

to travel from the United States to Africa.

It was wonderful. Unbelievable. And we all cried.

And he said that the President of Guinea, President Sekou Toure,

wanted to meet some of the young people involved in the movement.

I had the chance to meet and talk to the President of Guinea.

I had never seen in person the President of the United States.

And having dinner with the President of Guinea. It was just so fabulous.

From being beaten, from being arrested, in jail,

and then you find yourself on the West Coast of Africa.

We saw what was happening in Africa

so we started relating the struggle back home in America.

And I think we came back stronger. And better.

We came back from Africa with a tremendous sense of anticipation.

We are emerging today to dramatise to the nation,

to dramatise to the world that the hundreds and thousands

of Negro citizens of Alabama are denied the right to vote.

And of course, that first march on the bridge was bloodily repulsed.

The famous Bloody Sunday. And it went all around the world.

WHISTLES AND YELLING

And in that month, they had three different attempts to start

a march from Selma to Montgomery.

And finally, on the third attempt,

Harry was asked to recruit people for the celebration concert

the night before they marched into Montgomery.

Dr King requested that I call many artists who were friendly

to our movement and ask them if they would perform.

Anthony Perkins, Dr Martin Luther King.

I'm very glad to see you. Thanks so much for coming.

Hello, I'm Dr King.

Harry called me up and told me we had to go down there to perform.

It was...

It was unforgettable for me...

To watch what was going on.

# Well, now you're here

# And now I know just where I'm goin'

# No more doubt or fear

# I've found my way... #

What a wonderful world America is going to be when the Negro votes.

# Oooh ah

Get your hands off my mic!

# Ooh ah ah... #

# Everybody knows about Mississippi Goddam... #

# Sad to say I'm on my way

# Won't be back for many a day... #

# And you better start swimming or you'll sink like a stone

# For the times they are a-changing... #

They all sang at night.

In an atmosphere that was...um...

mixed apprehension and celebration.

I just want to say to you how much we are indebted

to my dear friend Harry Belafonte.

And to all of the other distinguished and famous artists

and entertainers who have taken time out of their very busy schedules

to be with us here in Montgomery, Alabama,

as we march on the state capital tomorrow morning.

God bless you.

When we marched up Highway 80,

one of the most moving moments was to see Harry Belafonte...

meet us before we walked into Montgomery.

Harry did this over and over and over and over again.

It's a great day.

Great day.

-Great day.

-CROWD: Great day!

And there are millions on the way.

CHEERING AND SHOUTING

# Go with me to that land... #

With this heightened momentum,

the movement began to advance aggressively towards new goals.

One day I turned on the TV set, and I came upon a truly bizarre scene.

The movement leaders were on a panel.

And the moderator was Jay Richard Kennedy. I was stunned

with how often this man invented himself.

Still doing the same mischief.

I would like to ask you, Martin Luther King Jr,

despite the tirelessness of your dedication...

The civil rights movement was plagued by all sorts of redbaiting.

If you can't persuade Martin King to change his ways,

then what do you want to do? You want to discredit him.

One of the ways you discredit him is discredit him

by the people he is associated with.

And Harry Belafonte, as an important performing artist,

you have to really know where he's coming from too

because he's also one of those people you have to be careful about.

Based upon information we have in the files.

Where did the information come from? Jay Richard Kennedy.

I never gave the CIA any information.

It would be absurd of me to think I could.

They have people all over the place. They want information, they got it.

What they got from me was an interpretation of information.

That disinformation, so much off the page,

yet it was exactly what the CIA would want

and would use in order to discredit us in eyes of the public.

# How many roads must a man walk down

# Before you call him a man? #

I'm here tonight cos I'm a black man.

And black people have paid the greatest penalty

for our military adventures.

And poor people have gained nothing

from this programme of dehumanisation.

It is estimated that we spend 322,000

for each enemy we kill in Vietnam.

While we spend on the so-called war on poverty in America

only about 53 for each person classified as poor.

Dr King...

Do you fear for your life?

I'm more concerned about doing a good job,

doing something for humanity and what I consider the will of God,

than about longevity.

Ultimately, it isn't so important how long you live,

the important thing is how well you live.

I have some very sad news for all of you.

And I think sad news for all of our fellow citizens.

And people who love peace all over the world.

And that is, Martin Luther King was shot

and was killed tonight in Memphis, Tennessee.

CROWD SCREAM

BELLS TOLL

A MAN SINGS

# Another man done gone

SHE WEEPS

# Another man done gone

# From the county farm

# Another man done gone... #

I couldn't believe it.

I c-c-couldn't.

All of a sudden...our worst fears were being awakened.

SINGING

I really did not give myself much time to be preoccupied

with any personal deep sense of loss.

We were trying to sort out what to do to help the nation quickly

come to a place of healing, and getting on with our programme.

Today, we are here gathered again

in a world that is fraught with violence.

I have come to reaffirm my support for unionism.

I have come to reaffirm my commitment to the struggle

to overcome dehumanisation,

as a black man who draws strength from a departed black brother.

CROWD APPLAUD

In this moment of great pain and conflict,

we picked up the pieces and moved on with it.

# Has anybody here

# Seen my old friend Martin?

# Can you tell me where he's gone?

# He freed a lotta people

# But it seems the good they die young

# I just looked around

# And he's gone... #

The death of Martin Luther King,

which was a major, major tragedy, in its own way,

helped focus attention on where we were and what was going on.

GUNFIRE AND SCREAMING

And what was going on was still deeply rooted in race.

But I found myself once again

dealing personally with these issues.

# Blessed are the meek they say

# They shall win where others lose... #

When Harry Belafonte went on the show with Petula Clark,

they touched.

# Why should men be forced to kill?

This innocent little touching.

The sponsor went ballistic. We can't have that!

Petula Clark touched Harry on the television

and flipped the whole world out.

People were like, "Oh, my God!"

We are talking about now, 12-14 years after the initial incident.

The absurdity of that, in any day and age,

that it would bring a television programme to a standstill, and Dad refused to give in to that.

# Why should men be forced to set out

# On the path of glory? #

In the face of this mindless onslaught, Petula stood strong.

She would not give in.

But we had no idea what the twist and turns at any moment might bring.

Senator Robert Francis Kennedy died at 1.44am today.

June 6th, 1968.

Barely two months after the assassination of Dr King

was the murder of Bobby Kennedy.

The dark shadow of despair rolled across the nation.

Evil forces stepped into the midst of our despair

and began planting the seeds

that would destroy the fabric of the country's belief in itself.

No aspect of life went untouched.

Even the song became a victim.

-Well, ladies and gentlemen, we've finally got together.

-That's right.

You've heard about it for years, and tonight, here we are.

-Tom.

-Dick.

And Harry.

We had Harry Belafonte on the show.

It was the opening show of the third season.

# A-ha! Lord, don't stop the carnival...

The election was coming up.

He did a calypso medley against a backdrop of the riots

at the convention in Chicago in 1968.

# Jump in the line, rock your body in time... #

That piece never saw the light of day.

CBS took the whole entire thing.

I think it was maybe a ten-minute or eight-minute chunk

out of the show.

And they put in...

HE LAUGHS

..a political commercial for Richard Nixon.

'This time, vote like your whole world depended on it.'

Sure enough, boom, we are fired. We weren't cancelled, we were fired.

Fired for our advocacy against the war in Vietnam.

And general liberal views.

And we were the only show on the air at that time

taking those points of view.

It was a tough time. People were on the march.

# Trouble in the city

# Trouble in the countryside

# No matter where you look

# You got troubles you can't hide

# Trouble on the reservation

# In the ghetto too

# Lies you tell your children

# Are coming down on you

# How long... #

There was this nuance, this rhythm of events.

So I made it my business to go to where those in struggle still live.

Go to where I'll find a deeper resonance of my own life.

The deeper resonances of my beginning.

I got caught up with the pandemic of hunger in Ethiopia.

To look at this barren place where people lived out

their horrified existence,

it was so overwhelming.

What was really most horrifying was the inordinate

and the remarkable amount of indifference.

I was deeply preoccupied with the question -

how do we fix this massive tragedy?

And Harry said, "Let's get busy. Let's find a way to get involved."

Like he did with everything else. He was always like that.

He was always, "Let's do something!"

A MAN PLAYS BASS

Stevie, Michael and Lionel are here.

We're just getting ready to cut the track.

I'm going to cut the bass again.

Harry brought the dream.

And so everybody came for the right reasons.

HE PLAYS PIANO

Let's cut it. Let's put it on the tape.

Harry had every disc jockey in the world play it simultaneously.

That was brilliant.

And about one minute's time, at 7.50,

everybody in the world is going to be playing the same song.

MUSIC: "We Are The World" by USA For Africa

# When we stand together as one

# We are the world

# We are the children... #

On the Friday morning,

following the Monday night recording of We Are The World,

I woke up, literally sat right up in bed and went, "Oh, my gosh!

"This isn't the end. This is the beginning."

We took a gutted 747 and we were bringing plastic sheeting,

tetracycline, medicines.

God knows, they raised a lot of money

and it went to where it was meant to go.

As often as I'd been to Africa, I don't think there is any way

in which we could have understood the full extent

of what it was we were going to be experiencing.

There was a constant sense of the smell of death.

The odour never really went away.

I got off the plane with Harry and the rest.

They were talking about people dying with dignity.

It is impossible to die of starvation with dignity.

I wasn't prepared for what I saw.

HE STIFFLES A SOB

It just...I'm sorry.

I went deep into the interior of Africa.

In a little village, I met with a storyteller.

He began to tell a story about the water.

About a fire. He pointed out that we are here for a very short time.

In that time that we are here,

there really isn't any difference in any of us.

If we were to take time out to understand each other,

because if we do, together we can turn the world around.

# Water make the river, river wash the mountain

# Fire make the sunlight, turn the world around

# Heart is of the river, body is the mountain

# Spirit is the sunlight, turn the world around

# Do you know who I am?

# Do I know who you are?

# See we one another clearly

# Do we know who we are?

# Oh, oh so is life Abatiwaha, so is life

# Oh, oh so is life Abatiwaha, so is life

# Oh, oh so is life Abatiwaha, so is life... #

As I wandered around the African continent with UNICEF,

I knew South Africa was still trapped in the need for freedom.

In the need for human expansion. Of the soul.

CROWD CHANT Reagan Botha, you can't hide.

We charge you with genocide.

Reagan Botha, you can't hide.

Do you think you're getting anywhere? Are you changing things?

Yes, I think that, first of all,

it shows that there is a willingness on the part of those of us

who believe in this cause to do what is necessary

to bring apartheid to a conclusion.

# Free Nelson Mandela! #

Harry Belafonte coming out on your side,

that was a powerful instrument in itself.

CROWD CHANT Freedom, yes! Apartheid, no!

After 27 years in South African jails, Nelson Mandela is a free man.

CROWD CHEER

I was summoned to be the official American voice framing

and putting together his first visit to America.

We actually spoke for the first time

the minute he stepped off the plane, landing in New York.

He looked over the crowd and when he spotted me,

he recognised me with a big smile on his face.

He said, "Ah! Harry boy!"

Comrade, brothers and sisters,

fellow Americans, I give you Nelson Mandela.