March 1

Harry Belafonte 

The late singer, actor, producer, songwriter and social activist, Harry Belafonte was born on March 1, 1927 in New York City.

Belafonte set musical records with the highest selling album by a single artist in 1956, Calypso sold over a million albums. Belafonte became the first African American to win an Emmy on June 20, 1960. He has also won a Tony Award, Academy Award, three Grammy Awards and a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.

Belafonte was well known for his civil rights activism and was a prominent fixture in civil right protests and marches as a close ally to the late Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.   He continued his activism for various humanitarian causes into the twentieth first century. Belafonte died on April 25, 2023 of congestive heart failure at age 96 in his Upper West Side Manhattan New York City home. Harry Belafonte was interviewed here backstage during the screening "Sing Your Song" by Occupy TVNY on October 30, 2011.