Born on a sharecropping farm in Mississippi, my mother fled north with her mother and her sister to Queens, New York, where they settled in Corona-East Elmhurst. During the 1950s and 1960s, the Queens neighborhood was home to many prominent Black figures including Malcolm X, Dizzy Gillespie, Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald. Even earlier, the late musician-activist Harry Belafonte called East Elmhurst home. My mother didn’t know most of these figures directly, but they loomed large, and when Belafonte passed away in late April, her stories of being nurtured by this vibrant community immediately came to mind.
Harry Belafonte was born in Harlem to parents who emigrated from Jamaica. His professional career took off with the musical “Carmen Jones,” and voiced such upbeat classics as “Jump in the Line” and “The Banana Boat Song (Day-O)” that came to define calypso. Belafonte earned the National Medal of Arts, a Tony, an Emmy and two Grammys. But he was just as celebrated for his work as a champion of many social and political causes, describing himself as “an activist who became an artist.” He died on April 25 at 96 years old.
But what about Belafonte’s philanthropic legacy? For one, he was an important financial backer of the civil rights movement, including as one of the people behind the scenes helping Martin Luther King Jr. and his allies post bail when they were arrested for acts of civil disobedience in the South. A few years ago, the Belafonte family launched the Belafonte Family Foundation (BFF) as an equity-minded public foundation that involves three generations.
Still, never one to shy away from challenging powerful institutions, Belafonte had his share of critiques of the sector overall. Among the pieces looking back at his legacy, columnist Charles Blow wrote a powerful opinion piece about his time with Belafonte, including the musician-activist’s views on philanthropy — which lamented a lack of true radical thinking among big funders.
Here, we take a look back at how Belafonte is remembered as a philanthropist, how his family’s foundation is carrying on his legacy, and what philanthropy, even in the most progressive corners of the sector, can learn from the trail he blazed.
An activist’s giving
“In the past, there were philanthropists in their communities who we only knew about later, when they passed away. Some knew each other when they would gather in New York around galvanizing events for civil rights, which, of course, was an important order of the day,” Robert F. Smith once told me, noting the figures behind the scenes supporting Martin Luther King Jr. and his allies.
Belafonte was among these figures, and a close friend of King, who sometimes stayed at Belafonte’s Upper West Side apartment. He provided seed money to help start the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), whose founders included NAACP luminary Julian Bond and Ella Baker. Belafonte was also one of the main fundraisers for King’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC).
He provided bail money for MLK and other civil rights leaders, even personally driving into Mississippi in 1964 to deliver doctors’ bags stuffed with cash, along with close friend and fellow King confidante Sidney Poitier. He provided financial backing for freedom rides, and in 1963, the singer-activist helped organize and took part in the March on Washington.
Behind the scenes, he maintained an insurance policy on King’s life, with the King family as the beneficiary, and donated his own money to support the family after King was assassinated. Last decade, there were legal disputes between MLK’s family and Belafonte over the ownership of some documents, but these have been settled.
Like other entertainers and athletes we’ve profiled, Belafonte also used his star power to advocate and bring awareness to issues around the world, including apartheid. He also spearheaded the Live Aid fundraising concert and that timeless all-star recording of “We Are the World,” which generated some $50 million in donations and received a Grammy for song of the year.
An activist family’s new foundation
In 2021, Harry Belafonte’s son David and David’s wife, Malena, cofounded the Belafonte Family Foundation. David worked at Belafonte Enterprises, Inc. (BEI) and Belafonte Arts and Media, LLC. Malena is a Danish fashion model turned singer, performer, producer, entrepreneur and creative director. The foundation describes itself as taking a “tri-generational approach” to creating access and opportunity for historically underserved youth, adults and communities across racial, gender and economic lines.
Foundation work is just kicking off, focusing on social justice and topics such as healthcare and entrepreneurship, and ending wrongful incarceration and sex trafficking. The foundation provides high school scholarships for underrepresented students at private schools. David himself attended Ethical Culture Fieldston School in New York City. The foundation will also offer similar scholarships to colleges, elementary schools and middle schools.
BFF also runs Bright Road Farms, an urban indoor farming initiative that uses mobile containers to grow and supply locally grown greens and herbs to underserved communities. BFF is designing a distributed farming network in cooperation with Freight Farms, Inc. to increase fresh food supply and build a sustainable way for people to grow food year-round in any climate. Bright Road takes its name from Belafonte’s first feature film, in which he costars opposite Dorothy Dandridge as the principal of a school that he ultimately turns around.
Bright Road lends its name to another BFF initiative — Bright Road Martial Arts Scholarship, which sponsors at-risk youth in martial arts training programs across multiple disciplines. David Belafonte has been practicing Brazilian jiu jitsu for decades.
These interests provide an early snapshot of what BFF is working. There are some question marks, of course, including how much money is being put into the foundation annually. The foundation also solicits donations, but until tax records are available, it’s unclear who some of these donors might be. Joining BFF leadership are third-generation family members Sarafina and Amadeus Belafonte, who are college- and high-school-aged.
A blistering critique
Belafonte’s legacy of financially supporting social justice movements will no doubt live on in history books and through his family’s continuing efforts. But his unwavering commitment to speaking truth to power should also be remembered and valued, including his harsh words for the philanthropic establishment.
In Charles Blow’s recent op-ed, he recalls meeting Belafonte for the second time at a Ford Foundation event, and the activist did not mince words about his views on philanthropy. Among other things, Belafonte argued that “philanthropy is a big part of the problem” because it fails to fund the real change makers. Blow says that Belafonte wasn’t even sure he would go to the event that day because he was tired of begging well-heeled foundations for money.
Like many critiques of the sector, Belafonte lamented the endless red tape and requests for proposals, and didn’t think it was right that people in boardrooms got to tell the “street how to shape language.” Belafonte issued a challenge to younger generations, ultimately encouraging them to be more persistent in “making those who are comfortable with our oppression uncomfortable.”
These are themes that have increasingly come up in my writing about the sector, including the story of one progressive family foundation that ultimately fractured in a disagreement over its values. A leader of the family’s fourth generation, Vanessa Compton Davenport’s words still stick with me: “Families need to understand what myths are passed down in a family that has privilege.”
I’m also reminded of the posture of the leaders of a Solidarity Philanthropy event I moderated earlier in the year. Their view of philanthropy was clear: The marginalized are not “recipients,” but rather agents and drivers of change. They are clear about that. And so, too, was the king of calypso and civil rights pioneer Belafonte.
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