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Creator
Belafonte, Harry, 1927-
Call number
SCP 186084
Physical description
32.16 linear feet (82 boxes, 9 oversize folders, 1 tube)
Language
English
Preferred Citation
Harry Belafonte photographs, Photographs and Prints Division. Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, The New York Public Library
Repository
Photographs and Prints Division. Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture
Access to materials
Request an in-person research appointment.

Harry Belafonte (1927-) is a Jamaican-American musician, actor, and activist best known for popularizing calypso music with international audiences, and his involvement in the American Civil Rights movement. His photographs, dating from 1925 to the 2010s, contain photographic prints, contact sheets, negatives, and slides that document his career as a singer, actor, and entertainer; advocacy for political and humanitarian causes; awards and honors; personal life with family and friends; relationships with colleagues in the arts; and international and domestic travels.

Biographical/historical information

This biographical note was written in 2022 by Heather Lember and Nathan Evans for the Harry Belafonte papers.

Harry Belafonte was born Harold George Bellanfanti, Jr. in 1927 in New York City. Belafonte's parents were Jamaican immigrants, and he spent much of his childhood in Jamaica. After attending George Washington High School in the Washington Heights neighborhood of New York City, Belafonte enlisted in the United States Navy in 1944, and served in World War II.

Upon returning from the War, Belafonte acted in productions for the American Negro Theatre in Harlem, and took acting lessons at the Dramatic Workshop of The New School. He began singing at clubs in order to pay for his classes, leading to a record contract with Roost Records in 1949, and RCA Victor in 1953. Between 1953 and 1954, Belafonte made his Broadway debut with John Murray Anderson's Almanac, a performance which earned him a Tony Award.

Belafonte's 1956 album, Calypso, helped popularize the style of Caribbean folk music, and became the first record to sell over a million copies. It contained the hit song, "Day-O (Banana Boat Song)," which Belafonte would be closely associated with for the rest of his career. He also starred in several films during the 1950s, including Carmen Jones (1954), Island in the Sun (1957), The World, the Flesh and the Devil (1959), and Odds Against Tomorrow (1959).

Belafonte has appeared in and produced numerous television series and specials. In 1959, he became the first Jamaican-American to win an Emmy for Revlon Revue: Tonight with Belafonte. He also produced the television movie The Strollin' Twenties (1966) and television special A Time for Laughter (1967); filled in for Johnny Carson on The Tonight Show in February 1968; and appeared on such programs as The Ed Sullivan Show, The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, and The Flip Wilson Show.

Throughout the 1960s, Belafonte continued to record albums in various styles, such as pop, blues, gospel, folk, and show tunes. After releasing his final calypso album in 1971, Belafonte focused mainly on performing and toured internationally. He released five more albums in the 1970s and 1980s, including Turn the World Around (1977), whose title track he performed on The Muppet Show in 1978. In 1984, Belafonte scored and produced Beat Street, a film about New York City hip-hop culture. Other film credits include The Angel Levine (1970), White Man's Burden (1996), Kansas City (1996), and Bobby (2006).

In addition to music and acting, Belafonte has been an advocate for humanitarian and political causes throughout his life. His political views were greatly influenced by his mentor, Paul Robeson, and led to Belafonte being blacklisted in Hollywood in 1950. A decade later, he appeared in a campaign ad for John F. Kennedy, performed at his inauguration, and was appointed as a cultural advisor to the Peace Corps by Kennedy.

Belafonte was a key figure in the American Civil Rights movement, and became a close confidant of Martin Luther King, Jr., who he bailed out of jail during the 1963 Birmingham Campaign. Belafonte also provided funding for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and the 1961 Freedom Rides, participated in numerous rallies and protests, and helped organize the 1963 March on Washington For Jobs and Freedom. During this time, he began speaking out against apartheid in South Africa; his final studio album, Paradise in Gazankulu (1988), featured ten apartheid protest songs. Belafonte also helped facilitate "We Are the World," a charity song for famine relief, and served as a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador. In the 1990s and 2000s, he supported the campaign against AIDS in South Africa and raised education awareness in Kenya.

Belafonte has received dozens of awards for his music, acting, and activism. His awards include the Kennedy Center Honors (1989), National Medal of Arts (1994), Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award (2000), Domestic Human Rights Award (2004), BET Humanitarian Award (2006), and NAACP Spingarn Medal (2013). In 2011, Sing Your Song, a documentary about Belafonte's life and career, was released. His memoir, My Song, was published the same year.

Belafonte has four children: two with his first wife, Marguerite Belafonte, and two with his second wife, Julie Belafonte. As of 2022, he resides in New York City with his third wife, Pamela Belafonte.

Scope and arrangement

The Harry Belafonte photographs chronicle Belafonte's performing arts career, involvement with political and humanitarian causes, and personal life with family and friends, especially in the context of international and domestic travel. The collection reveals the many aspects of Belafonte's career and how they often intertwined, as well as the wide array of artistic and political relationships he forged throughout his life. It is arranged into two series: Photographs and Prints, which comprehensively cover Belafonte's professional and personal life; and Slides that document his trips, tours, vacations, and humanitarian missions with photographs mostly taken by Belafonte.

The Harry Belafonte photographs are arranged in two series:

  • Series I: Photographs and Prints
    1925-2010s
    20.91 linear feet (55 boxes, 9 oversize folders, 1 tube)

    Series I contains photographs and photographic prints that extensively detail Belafonte's professional and personal life. Dating from 1925 to the 2010s, this series reveals Belafonte's decades-long career as a singer, actor, and entertainer; the numerous awards and honors he received; relationships he forged with colleagues in the arts; his involvement in the Civil Rights movement and commitment to humanitarian causes; personal life with family and friends; and travels.

    Images are in black-and-white and color, with 4" x 6" and 8" x 10" the most common sizes. Several scrapbooks and albums of photographs are included. In addition, this series holds some contact sheets and negatives, which are typically filed with their corresponding photographs. Negative sizes include 35mm, 120 film, and 8" x 10". Contact sheets and negatives are most frequently held in Subseries I.C., I.D., and I.G.

  • Series II: Slides
    1958-1999
    11.25 linear feet (27 boxes)

    The slides held in Series II extensively chronicle Belafonte's international and domestic travels from 1958 to 1999, including his humanitarian missions in the 1980s and 1990s. The majority of slides contain photographs taken by Belafonte; accordingly, he does not appear in most of them. Rather, the slides largely depict landscapes, nature, animals, city life, local inhabitants, monuments, buildings, and events. Belafonte (and, often, his family) travelled in the countries he toured as a musician, and many of the slides originate from these trips. The bulk of slides are arranged by date and cover trips and vacations; the rest are arranged by subject. Nearly every slide is in color and 35mm.

    All the slides arranged by date use a numbering system that is drawn from an index in box 34. Slides are organized in sets by year, month, and a sequential number relating to the month. For instance, 9-43 for 1996 indicates the 43rd set of slides for September, 1996. The majority of sets contain around forty slides. The year and month-numbers are written on preservers that house each set of slides, and on their folders. The index also includes detailed descriptions of every set; brief descriptions taken from the index can be found in the container list. Additionally, the index lists a small number of undated slides.

    Not every set of slides listed on the index is included. Some sets are missing entirely, while others have been removed from the sequence and arranged by subject. These slides retain the subject arrangement in the collection.

    Highlights of the indexed slides include numerous trips to Saint Martin (where Belafonte owned property), Cuba, Germany, Jamaica, and Japan. There are slides from Belafonte's 1958 visits to East Berlin, Greece, Italy, and the Philippines, as well as 1960 visits to Hong Kong, Israel, and Australia. A trip to Ecuador and the Galápagos Islands in 1996 is chronicled by more than 3,000 slides that mostly depict animals and nature. A 1998 visit to Madagascar and Mauritius is also heavily chronicled.

    Belafonte's humanitarian missions for UNICEF and USA for Africa are well-represented. His 1985 visits to Sudan, Ethiopia, and Tanzania for USA for Africa feature here, as do UNICEF trips from 1987 (Senegal), 1988 (Mozambique and Zimbabwe), and 1994 (Rwanda and Zaire). There are also slides of Nelson Mandela in both the United States and South Africa after his release from prison in 1990.

    Slides arranged by subject are fewer, and cover various aspects of Belafonte's life and career. There is a large number of slides from the Harry Belafonte and Friends television special, in addition to other live performances. A group of slides titled "Harry Being Harry" contains informal shots and portraits of Belafonte from throughout his life.

Administrative information

Source of acquisition

Purchased from Harry Belafonte in 2019.

Processing information

Processed by Nathan Evans in 2022.

Using the collection

Location

Photographs and Prints Division. Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture
515 Malcolm X Boulevard, New York, NY 10037-1801
Photographs and Prints Division Reading Room