Fri. Jan 20, 2012
Harry Belafonte: Civil Rights and Human Rights
March 15, 2002
Singer and actor Harry Belafonte reflects on America's painful history of racial injustice and comments on the challenges that remain in advancing human rights at home and abroad. Harry Belafonte has been at the forefront of the American struggle for civil rights and an international effort to promote human rights throughout the globe. Here, Belafonte launches a major new civil rights and human rights initiative with the claim that "We are very spoiled here. We know very little about terrorism, except for those of us who have been victims of terror within our own circle. A lot of us here have always understood terror. We've lived in it. It knocks at the door constantly. There are other forms of terror. Poverty is terror. HIV/AIDS is terror. Absence of education and ignorance is great terror."
Series:
“Sing Your Song”: Harry Belafonte on Art & Politics, Civil Rights & His Critique of President Obama
Legendary musician, actor, activist and humanitarian Harry Belafonte joins us for the hour to talk about his battle against racism, his mentor Paul Robeson, the power of music to push for political change, his close relationship with the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and the U.S. role in Haiti. A new documentary chronicles his life, called Sing Your Song. The son of Jamaican immigrants, Belafonte grew up on the streets of Harlem and Jamaica. In the 1950s, he spearheaded the calypso craze and became the first artist in recording history with a million-selling album. He was also the first African-American musician to win an Emmy. Along with his rise to worldwide stardom, Belafonte became deeply involved in the civil rights movement. One of Dr. King’s closest confidants, he helped organize the March on Washington in 1963. “Going into the South of the United States, listening to the voices of rural black America, listening to the voices of those who sang out against the Ku Klux Klan and out against segregation, and women, who were the most oppressed of all, rising to the occasion to protest against their conditions, became the arena where my first songs were to emerge,” Belafonte tells Democracy Now!
Schedule of programs http://www.localendar.com/public/crazyoldmannetwork
