Hundreds turn out to remember Harry Belafonte at Lincoln Center sing along

Over a hundred people came out last week to a sing-along held at Lincoln Center’s Revson Fountain in honor of Harry Belafonte, the singer, actor and civil rights activist who passed away April 24, age ninety-six.

Belafonte was a beloved singer who popularized the Caribbean music style known as calypso for American audiences, with such hits as “Day O (The Banana Boat Song),” “Jump in the Line (Shake, Senora),” and “Jamaica Farewell.”

But even more enduring today is his legacy as a champion for civil rights, a fighter for equality who fought injustice wherever he found it. As an activist, he protested the policies of American presidents from Nixon to Trump and advocated for humanitarian causes around the globe. He was a close confidant of Martin Luther King, Jr., financially supporting his family and even bailing him out of the Birmingham, Alabama, jail.

“People mistake that he’s this artist who became an activist,” said Jamal Joseph, founder of IMPACT Repertory Theatre, speaking before the sing-along. “He would be the first to tell you that he’s an activist who happened to become an artist.”

The sing-along was led by the IMPACT Repository Theatre, an arts and activist group, and organized by The Gathering For Justice, the social justice foundation that Belafonte founded.

“The Gathering called us and they said they’d like to be able to lift voices in honor of Belafonte, and we said, absolutely,” said Leah C. Johnson, Chief Communications and Market Officer at Lincoln Center Plaza. “At least for us, at Lincoln Center, he represents the coming together of the arts and social justice.”

Among the crowd were people of all races and ages. Younger people crowded around the front, their phones out, while, closer to the fountain, rows of seats were reserved for older visitors. Employees told people the program and passed out lyric sheets of the two songs – “Day-O” and “We Are The World” – that were to be sung.

The seats were soon filled by people who had listened to Belafonte’s music when it had first come out, and had, with their parents, followed his career for decades. “He’s been a part of my life for a long time, since my childhood,” said Alison Duff. “My mother had a crush on him. Him and Sydney Poitier, they were it.”

Much of the crowd had come from across the City out of passion for Belafonte, his achievements, and his work. “I really have a lot of respect for the sacrifice he made, in his own personal life, for civil rights,” said Dana Sampeur. “He’ll be very missed.”

“I was so sad by myself yesterday and so it’s just nice to be in a community,” said Brooke Greene. “And I think that so much of what Mr. B was about was community, bringing people together. And that’s what this is.”

Others were pedestrians who had happened by and, fans of Belafonte, decided to stay. “I asked someone, ‘what’s the event?,” said Isabel Benes. “He was such an example of human kindness and activism, of gentleness and activism. There was a refined activism that I think he brought to New York and the world.”

It was a beautiful spring evening and the sound of traffic rang plaintively in the cool, pink air. Chatting and waiting, the crowd held their black lyric sheets at their sides. The fountain rose and fell, rose and fell – and then turned off as Carmen Perez, President of The Gathering For Justice, took the stage.

“Once we start singing, I want us to raise our voices loud and clear, and sing to the heavens, so that Mr. B. can hear us.”

Mr. Joseph followed. “This is a people’s gathering,” said Mr. Joseph, to cheers and hollers from the crowd. “And the thing that we know from movements is that it’s always looked like this, a rainbow coalition, a gathering of the people.”

He began with “We Are The World.” The voices were tentative at first, unsure of themselves, but then, gathering force, became louder and louder, drowning out the sound of a passing siren. Many of the lyric sheets, unnecessary, remained at people’s sides.

Belafonte was an honorary Oscar winner and in his career was the first Afro-American to win a Tony and the first Afro-American to win an Emmy for a special “Tonight with Harry Belafonte” for “The Revlon Revue” and his music earned him two Grammys as well as a third lifetime achievement Grammy towards the end of his singing career.

His first LP, “Calypso” was also the first LP to sell over one million copies.

By the 1960s, he was deeply involved in civil rights activism, helping organize the 1963 March on Washington and participated in the Selma March in 1965 with Martin Luther King, Jr. He was born in Harlem to West Indian immigrant parents and dropped out of high school to join the navy when he was 17 and served during the waning days of World War II.

He was working as a janitor when someone gave him a ticket to see a production of “Home is the Hunter” at the American Negro Theatre. He was so impressed that he joined ANT where he met Sidney Portier and became lifelong friends. He began taking acting classes at the New School, where his classmates included Marlon Brando and Charlton Heston. Throughout his activism in the civil rights movement, he never hesitated to draw in other Hollywood stars to help organize events such as the 1963 March on Washington.

He said he was going to step back from performing in the 2000s, but he did make a final film appearance as a bit player in the 2006 film “Bobby” about his longtime friend Robert F. Kennedy.

“I tried to envision playing out the rest of my life devoted almost exclusively to reflection, but there’s just too much in the world to be done,” he was quoted as saying in an obit in Vanity Fair the day after his passing. He continued to speak out against political figures that he regarded as divisive, calling George W. Bush a “terrorist” and the Department of Homeland Security the “Gestapo,” and blasted Condoleeza Rice and Colin Powell for getting involved in the administration.

In an op-ed when Donald Trump was seeking reelection in 2020, Belafonte urged black voters not to be swayed by empty promises. “We have learned exactly how much we had to lose—a lesson that has been inflicted upon Black people again and again in our history — and we will not be bought off by the empty promises of the flimflam man.”

John Legend learned of Belafonte’s passing just as he was entering a Time 100 event on April 24th. “He lived such a long, powerful, revolutionary life,” Legend told Time. “If you think about what it means to be an artist and activist, he was the epitome of what that was. He used his platform in an almost subversive way to sneak messages in there of protest and revolution in everything he did.”