Earlier than Harry Belafonte was a famous person, often called the “King of Calypso” for his smash hits within the Nineteen Fifties and for funneling his wealth into assist for the civil rights motion, he was a World Battle II Navy veteran who narrowly missed the battle’s largest stateside catastrophe.
He died April 25, 2023, at age 96 at his house in New York. The trigger was congestive coronary heart failure, in line with his spokesman.
Belafonte dropped out of highschool in New York Metropolis, and after watching a World Battle II propaganda movie, he enlisted at age 17. He in the end served 18 months between 1944 and 1945 at Port Chicago, California, close to San Francisco.
Within the still-segregated U.S. army, Black service members weren’t sometimes assigned to frontline preventing models and as an alternative served in assist roles stateside. Belafonte’s job was to load army ships certain for the Pacific theater.
However simply earlier than he arrived in Port Chicago, 320 service members — two-third of them Black sailors — had been killed when munitions detonated throughout loading onto a cargo vessel. About 390 service members and civilians had been additionally injured. The deaths and accidents are believed to account for 15% of all Black service member casualties throughout the battle.
“It was the worst homefront catastrophe of World Battle II, however nearly nobody is aware of about it or what adopted,” Belafonte stated, in line with a Protection Division press launch about his service.
The catastrophe sparked a strike among the many Black sailors as they refused to proceed loading munitions underneath the identical management and security system as earlier than the accident. Fifty of the sailors, often called the Port Chicago 50, had been convicted of mutiny and sentenced to jail. Most weren’t launched till 1946.
“The Port Chicago mutiny was one in all America’s ugliest miscarriages of justice, the biggest mass trial in naval historical past, and a nationwide shame,” Belafonte stated in line with the discharge, and credited tv producer Ted Turner and his employees with having the braveness to place the story on tv.
A Port Chicago Naval Journal Nationwide Memorial was devoted in 1994 to the sailors killed within the catastrophe.
After leaving the Navy in 1945, Belafonte returned to New York Metropolis and used his GI Invoice to pay for lessons at The New College Dramatic Workshop. His fellow college students included future actor Marlon Brando and Sidney Poitier, who turned a lifelong good friend.
To complement his revenue whereas attending appearing lessons, Belafonte sang at nightclubs at occasions backed by music legends, together with jazz musicians Charlie Parker, Max Roach and Miles Davis.
Later, he developed an curiosity in people music. With guitarist and good friend Millard Thomas, Belafonte made his debut at The Village Vanguard, a legendary jazz membership in New York Metropolis. In 1953, he signed a contract with RCA Victor, recording commonly for the label till 1974.
Belafonte additionally carried out throughout the so-called Rat Pack period in Las Vegas. He and pianist Liberace, musician and singer Ray Vasquez, and singer Sammy Davis Jr. had been featured on the Sands Resort and On line casino and the Dunes Resort.
Belafonte’s first broadly launched single, which turned his signature viewers participation tune in just about all of his dwell performances, was “Matilda,” recorded on April 27, 1953. His breakthrough album “Calypso” (1956) turned the primary long-playing document on the earth to promote greater than 1 million copies inside a 12 months.
The album launched American audiences to calypso music, and Belafonte was dubbed the King of Calypso.
Moreover calypso, Belafonte recorded blues, people, gospel, present tunes and American requirements.
Belafonte was an early supporter of the civil rights motion within the Nineteen Fifties and Sixties and one in all Martin Luther King Jr.’s shut pals. All through his profession, he has been an advocate for political and humanitarian causes, such because the anti-apartheid motion in South Africa.
He has additionally starred in a number of movies, most notably “Carmen Jones” (1954), “Island within the Solar” (1957) and “Odds In opposition to Tomorrow” (1959). And in 1968, he made historical past substituting for Johnny Carson as a visitor host for “The Tonight Present.” Amongst his visitors had been King and Sen. Robert F. Kennedy.
Editor’s Word: Materials from a Protection Division biography by David Vergun of Belafonte was included on this report.
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