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Harry
Belafonte Ain’t Nothin’ to F&%k With (Just Ask Colin
Powell)
By Davey D
Long time
entertainer/activist/ freedom fighter Harry Belafonte
came to Oakland the other week for an event he puts on
called the Gathering for Justice. It drew more than a
thousand people from all over the world including a
number of former gang members who are concerned about
the high incarceration rates and the increasing
challenges besetting our society.
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Why was Belafonte’s Oakland star-studded
gathering
whited out by mainstream media?
By Marvin X
Billed as Harry
Belafonte’s Gathering for Justice, the world renowned
humanitarian called a national conference of youth to
gather in Oakland Saturday to address their pressing
issues and spark their consciousness to continue the
work of his generation and those before him on the train
of justice. Youth flooded into the Oakland Marriot from
Mississippi, Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, Washington,
D.C., Brooklyn, Boston, Chicago and Detroit, as well as
California.
Youth from Oakland and the Bay Area, however, did not
seem to be well represented, for some strange reason.
[Little publicity appeared before the gathering, and the
Bay View has been able to find no mainstream media
coverage of the event. – ed.]
Nevertheless, the multi-cultural crowd was treated to
the likes of Belafonte, Danny Glover, Barbara Lee, Ron
Dellums, Walter Mosley, Sean Penn, Santana, Davey D and
yes, Marvin X, who was vending his books when the Hot 8
Brass Band called him to the stage to join them in
electrifying the crowd.
We cannot praise and honor Harry Belafonte enough for
his years in our liberation struggle. Yes, he is in the
tradition of our great ancestor Paul Robeson, who
defined himself as the artistic freedom fighter. At 81
years old, Harry is showing us that there is no
retirement in the battle for justice in America or the
world.
Just as the forces of white supremacy are relentless, we
must be also and never give up until the last breath. In
his keynote address delivered at 9 a.m. on Saturday
morning, he talked about the suffering his mentor Paul
Robeson experienced as the artistic freedom fighter, but
Harry said he is inspired to see Robeson’s spirit alive
in actor Danny Glover.
Even though he supported and marched with Rev. Martin
Luther King Jr., Harry was hypercritical of the black
church today, calling it the "kidnappers of truth,"
along with a few more choice words. DJ Davey D urged me
to write a poem using Harry’s metaphor. Harry criticized
the reactionary rappers as well, calling them sellouts
to cultural imperialism.
But his main message is that we can overcome the forces
of white supremacy by organizing and non-violently
opposing evil. A mass movement of conscious youth can be
a critical factor in moving the Movement forward out of
the lethargy and passivity of the last few years.
Because of its revolutionary tradition, Oakland was
chosen for the first in a series of national meetings of
the Gathering for Justice movement. Youth and adults in
attendance included Native Americans, Latinos, Whites,
Pacific Islanders, Asians and African Americans.
We don’t quite understand why more Oakland people were
not present, especially with such high profile
personalities on the agenda. Did organizers do outreach
locally, or did they purposely limit information on the
event since Oakland is currently suffering so much
violence? Of course violence is nationwide. Someone,
maybe Harry, mentioned 16,000 persons were murdered in
America last year – yes, far more than have died in
Iraq. Maybe conference organizers feared Oaklanders
mixing with youth from outside the city.
The Gathering for Justice must present a long-term
strategy to confront the myriad problems facing youth,
including violence, mis-education, lack of jobs – in
lieu of jobs we suggest entrepreneurship and micro
credit.
Since there are few Black teachers, we offer peer
teaching and independent study. And the prison
population should be reduced with a general amnesty.
The problem of the church or faith community can be
addressed by noting the liberation theology of Jesus and
Muhammad, and perhaps moving beyond religion toward
spirituality as the Native Americans spoke about so
eloquently and at great length.
If Harry Belafonte, at 81, can involve himself with the
Gathering for Justice, surely I can do the same at 63,
and so I call upon my generation to become a part of
this movement to save our children. Remember that James
Brown tune, “Get Involved”?
The highlight for me at Harry’s Gathering for Justice
was seeing the new generation of youth embracing each
other and us elders. The Creator is telling me every
little thing is going to be all ite. It was a blessing
hearing and performing with that great group of young
people from New Orleans, the Hot 8 Brass Band. “Get
Involved!”
The latest book by Dr. M/ Marvin X is
“How to Recover From the Addiction to White Supremacy: A
Pan African 12 Step Model for a Mental Health Peer
Group,” foreword by Dr. Nathan Hare, afterword by Ptah
Allah El, Black Bird Press, P.O. Box 1317, Paradise CA
95967, $19.95.
www.marvinxwrites.blogspot.com,
mrvnx@yahoo.com .
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Belafonte, Harold George (Harry)
(b. March 1, 1927, New York, N.Y.), African American singer, actor,
producer, and activist, who has used his position as an entertainer to
promote human rights worldwide.
Belafonte continues to use his power as an entertainer
in the struggle for civil rights. His production company, Harbel, formed
in 1959, produces movies and television shows by and about black
Americans. Belafonte's idea for the hit song "We Are the
World" generated more than 70 million dollars to fight famine in
Ethiopia in 1985. Two years later, he became the second American to be
named UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador.
Harold George "Harry" Belafonte, Jr.
(originally Belafonte; born March 1, 1927) is an American
musician, actor and
social activist. One of the most successful pop singers in
history, he was dubbed the "King of
Calypso," a title which he was very reluctant to accept
(according to the documentary Calypso Dreams) for popularizing
the
Caribbean musical style with an international audience in
the 1950s. Belafonte is perhaps best known for singing the "Banana
Boat Song," with its signature lyric "Day-O." Throughout his
career, he has been an advocate for
civil rights and
humanitarian causes. He was a vocal critic of the policies
of the
George W. Bush Administration.—Wikipedia
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Sing Your Song
Harry Belafonte on Art and Politics, Civil
Rights & His Critique of President Obama
Harry Belafonte,
legendary musician, actor and humanitarian. He’s the
subject of a new documentary about his life, called
Sing Your Song. This interview was conducted at the
2011 Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah.
I'm So Pissed Off
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Transcript of Harry Belafonte-Larry King Interview
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Sex at the Margins
Migration, Labour Markets and the Rescue Industry
By Laura María Agustín
This book explodes several myths: that selling sex is completely different from any other kind of work, that migrants who sell sex are passive victims and that the multitude of people out to save them are without self-interest. Laura Agustín makes a passionate case against these stereotypes, arguing that the label 'trafficked' does not accurately describe migrants' lives and that the 'rescue industry' serves to disempower them. Based on extensive research amongst both migrants who sell sex and social helpers, Sex at the Margins provides a radically different analysis. Frequently, says Agustin, migrants make rational choices to travel and work in the sex industry, and although they are treated like a marginalised group they form part of the dynamic global economy. Both powerful and controversial, this book is essential reading for all those who want to understand the increasingly important relationship between sex markets, migration and the desire for social justice. "Sex at the Margins rips apart distinctions between migrants, service work and sexual labour and reveals the utter complexity of the contemporary sex industry. This book is set to be a trailblazer in the study of sexuality."—Lisa Adkins, University of London |
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The Warmth of Other Suns
The Epic Story of America's Great
Migration
By Isabel Wilkerson
Ida Mae Brandon Gladney, a
sharecropper's wife, left Mississippi
for Milwaukee in 1937, after her cousin
was falsely accused of stealing a white
man's turkeys and was almost beaten to
death. In 1945, George Swanson Starling,
a citrus picker, fled Florida for Harlem
after learning of the grove owners'
plans to give him a "necktie party" (a
lynching). Robert Joseph Pershing Foster
made his trek from Louisiana to
California in 1953, embittered by "the
absurdity that he was doing surgery for
the United States Army and couldn't
operate in his own home town." Anchored
to these three stories is Pulitzer
Prize–winning journalist Wilkerson's
magnificent, extensively researched
study of the "great migration," the
exodus of six million black Southerners
out of the terror of Jim Crow to an
"uncertain existence" in the North and
Midwest. Wilkerson deftly incorporates
sociological and historical studies into
the novelistic narratives of Gladney,
Starling, and Pershing settling in new
lands, building anew, and often finding
that they have not left racism behind.
The drama, poignancy, and romance of a
classic immigrant saga pervade this
book, hold the reader in its grasp, and
resonate long after the reading is done.
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My Song: A Memoir
By Harry Belafonte with Michael Shnayerson
Here is a gorgeous account of the large life of a Harlem boy, son of a Jamaican cleaning lady, Melvine Love, and a ship’s cook, Harold Bellanfanti, who endured the grind of poverty under the watchful eye of his proud mother and waited for his chances, prepared to be lucky, and made himself into the international calypso star and popular folk singer, huge in Las Vegas, also Europe, and a mainstay of the civil rights movement of the ’60s . . .
His mother found refuge in the Catholic Church. The Holy Roller preachers of her native Jamaica were “too niggerish” for her. She loved the marble majesty of Catholicism and sent the boy off to parochial school to suffer at the hands of the nuns and took him to Mass every Sunday, dressed in a blue suit, and afterward to the Apollo Theater to hear Cab Calloway or Count Basie or Duke Ellington, Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald. . . . Dr. King is one strong strand in My Song; another is Belafonte’s family saga through three marriages with four children; another is his inner life, psychoanalysis, the wounds of childhood, his gambling addiction; another, the oddity of show business, the casual flings, the personal manager who turned out to be an F.B.I. informer. Indelible characters pass by: Sidney Poitier, Eleanor Roosevelt, James Baldwin, Bob Dylan, Fidel Castro, Miriam Makeba.—NYTimes |
Tavis Smiley Interview of Harry Belafonte Part 1
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Tavis Smiley Interview of Harry Belafonte Part 2
Harry Belafonte for JFK Campaign Spot
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The White Masters of the
World
From
The World and Africa, 1965
By W. E. B. Du Bois
W. E. B. Du Bois’
Arraignment and Indictment of White Civilization
(Fletcher)
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Ancient African Nations
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If you like this page consider making a donation
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Negro Digest /
Black World
Browse all issues
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Enjoy!
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The Death of Emmett Till by Bob Dylan
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The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll
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Only a Pawn in Their Game
Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson Thanks America for
Slavery
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The Journal of Negro History issues at Project Gutenberg
The
Haitian Declaration of Independence 1804
/
January 1, 1804 -- The Founding of
Haiti
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posted 27 November 2007 / update 31 December 2011
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