Happy Friday. History is personal.
One of the funniest anecdotes I ever collected while reporting on civil rights was from Joanne Bland, then the founder of a small voting rights museum in Selma, Ala. In 1965, she was among a group of young children being prepped to join the many protests planned against the state violence now known as Bloody Sunday. "King is coming!" their families were told, which the adults understood to mean Martin Luther. “But us kids thought it was King, this dog, who was on tv,” she recalled, referring to a popular show about a crime-fighting Alaskan malamute. They were thrilled. Then a preacher showed up. No longer thrilled. Luckily, the good reverend brought along some friends. “We all knew who Harry Belafonte was,” she said with a big smile.
Harry Belafonte, the trailblazing singer, actor, and civil rights icon, died this week at 96.
He was a steady voice for justice who could be counted on to unflinchingly and presciently raise issues with urgency and directness. “A river of blood that washes the streets of our nation flows mostly from the bodies of our Black children,” Belafonte said when accepting an NAACP Image Award in 2013. “Yet, as the great debate emerges on the question of the gun, white America discusses the constitutional issue of ownership, while no one speaks of the consequences of our racial carnage.”
There is much to unpack about his remarkable career, but let's focus on Belafonte's origin story.
In 1956, nine years before he thrilled the activist kids of Selma, Belafonte became the first-ever Black artist to hit number one on the Billboard top-albums chart, where he stayed for an unprecedented 31 weeks. The album was Calypso, a joyful collection of songs that showcased his remarkable voice and roots in Jamaica and Martinique. The album, which contained an irrepressibly catchy song about exhausted and oppressed banana boat workers—oh, you know the one—also became the first by any artist to reach the million-seller mark. He went on to an outstanding film career. He became the first-ever African American television producer. He became the first African American to win an Emmy. His list of firsts is staggering.
Yes, everyone knew Harry Belafonte. He was welcome atop record players nationwide, a glamourous figure everyone admired. He made people happy, and then he made them think.
But don’t let his lighthearted early hits fool you, cautions music writer Jason Heller. “He didn’t have to sing overtly about politics; his very existence as a chart-topping pop artist (and, let’s not forget, a universal sex symbol) who happened to be Black was, at the time, a statement in and of itself,” he says.
And his choice of calypso music was a snitch. “It was Revolution you could limbo to,” writes Heller. The 1950s and ’60s were a time of great change across the Caribbean states, a quest for post-colonial and economic justice that mirrored the U.S. “Belafonte’s renewal of traditional African-Caribbean ballads and work songs didn’t just evoke an earthy, homespun past. They broadened Black consciousness and inspired hope for the future.”
History may be personal, but so is hope. As the Belafonte tributes, stories, and memories pour in, let's celebrate the light he shone as he held doors open for others. And I don’t know about you, but a little limbo with friends sounds like a fine way to throw a revolution. More joy, please.
Ellen McGirt
@ellmcgirt
Ellen.McGirt@fortune.com
This edition of raceAhead was edited by Ruth Umoh.
