Harry Belafonte Talks to Jelani Cobb About Entertainment and Activism

The Political Scene | The New Yorker

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🗓️ 3 October 2016

⏱️ 16 minutes

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Summary

We take for granted that popular entertainers can and should advocate for causes they believe in. But until Harry Belafonte pioneered that kind of activism in the middle of the last century, stars largely kept their political leanings private. In the lead-up to October’s Many Rivers to Cross festival, which Belafonte helped dream up, the New Yorker staff writer Jelani Cobb paid a visit to the actor, musician, and civil-rights icon. Belafonte turned eighty-nine this year and is looking to pass the torch, but he’s worried about the state of the civil-rights movement and what he sees as a lack of organized response: we have a struggle, he says, but not a movement. Cobb, who covers many civil-rights and other political issues for the magazine, teases out what Belafonte means.

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1:12.0	I'm Dorothy Wickenden. On today's Politics and More podcast, the New Yorker's
1:16.4	Jelani Cobb talks with the actor, musician, and activist Harry Belafonte. An icon of the
1:22.4	civil rights movement, Belafonte worries about the state of civil rights activism today.
1:29.7	This weekend in Atlanta, there's a festival taking place called Many Rivers to Cross.
1:34.3	It's billed as a festival of music, art, and justice, and it brings top performers like Chris
1:39.4	Rock and MacLamore together with activists like Cornell West and the founders of Black Lives Matter.
1:46.2	Many Rivers to Cross is the brainchild of none other than Harry Belafonte and the organization he
1:52.1	founded called Sankofa. Now today we take for granted more or less that entertainers can speak out
1:58.2	and advocate for all kinds of causes. But Harry Belafonte was one of the pioneers.
2:03.7	He was at the very center of the civil rights movement,
2:06.5	and he was a confidant of Martin Luther King, Jr.
2:09.5	Later, he worked with Nelson Mandela to bring down apartheid in South Africa.
	...

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