Celebrate Harry Belafonte’s 95th birthday at Town Hall March 1

Who isn’t conversant in and doesn’t enormously admire activist/actor/singer/songwriter, the one-and-only Harry Belafonte? And all of us notice how vital it’s for our treasured elders to obtain their flowers whereas they’ll take pleasure in them. Nicely, you’ll have an opportunity to show these emotions by becoming a member of him for his ninety fifth Birthday Celebration at The City Corridor at 123 W forty third Road on March 1. For many years, Mr. Belafonte has been a supply of delight and a trailblazer for the Black Neighborhood. Tickets to the celebration will vary from $47.50 to $125.00. The monies will go in direction of benefiting, Sankofa.org, a non-profit group that he, his daughter Gina Belafonte and Raoul Roach began 10 years in the past. It’s going to additionally mark the inaugural awarding of the Harry Belafonte Social Justice Awards which will likely be introduced to Angela Davis, Rashad Robinson, Kimberlé Crenshaw, Dr. Cornel West, Darren Walker, Hank Willis Thomas, former Lawyer Basic Eric Holder and Congresswoman Barbara Lee.

Gina Belafonte not too long ago sat down and spoke in regards to the upcoming occasion and her father. Describing her Dad she shared, “He’s loving, supportive, a mentor, enjoyable, humorous, nice humorousness, however he’s very severe in regards to the arts and activism and the position that he performs in that base.”

Gina is certainly one of 4 kids of Harry Belafonte, her siblings embody Adrienne, Shari, and David. Recalling rising up with a father who was a beloved, famend, singer/songwriter/actor/activist, she fondly recalled, “He was typically very busy in rehearsals, touring, capturing an image, tv present or doing methods across the civil rights motion, girls’s motion, anti-apartheid motion, ambassador to UNICEF. As an artist, it was a blessing for us, we bought to go to his reveals and be backstage. I bought a firsthand expertise of manufacturing. After I graduated from school my father requested me to be his performing coach, so we have been collectively that manner. So, he has included me in his creative endeavors. After we have been youthful, he would tailor his musical reveals for once we have been off from college and we might go along with him. Different instances he would do issues the place we might trip as a household and he wouldn’t be working.”

Impressed her complete life by his activism, Belafonte defined, “He and my mom gave me a basis and an ideology to be rooted in and it very a lot formed how I framed my very own political engagement and course of. My activism is rooted within the Kenyan non-violence philosophy. Utilizing the humanities as a instrument to coach, encourage and activate folks in direction of social change.” Contemplating her father’s legacy, Belafonte declared, “His legacy is to take part on a regular basis of your life to help within the liberation, well being and well-being of a neighborhood.”

March 1 goes to have a three-fold objective, to have a good time her father’s ninety fifth birthday, to have the primary Harry Belafonte Social Justice Awards and to have a good time the tenth anniversary of Sankofa.org. Discussing the impression of this upcoming occasion, Belafonte stated, “It is a huge day for me in the beginning honoring my father and his contribution to social justice, activism and the humanities. However, additionally the chance to award and thank iconic activists and contributors to our neighborhood and within the course of to have a good time the arduous work of Sankofa.org for 10 years. That is the primary time we’re doing a public fundraising occasion, through the years the group has been sustained by grants. I wished to make sure that my father understood that we are going to keep dedicated to the work at hand, to serving our communities to make use of artwork to have interaction younger folks. And to acknowledge individuals who have served facet by facet with my father. It means a terrific deal to me to present social justice awards to this 12 months’s distinguished winners.”

Reflecting on why they began Sankofa.org Belafonte recalled, “What we found was that we wished to discover a technique to institutionalize the capability of my father or somebody like him to create an area the place artists can use their platform as a manner for change. We wished celebrities which are well-known and neighborhood organizers. They will come along with grassroots organizations and are available contact with folks within the neighborhoods to search out out what must be modified. Artists can’t helicopter into a problem and assume they’ll change it and bolt. And my father has an amazing monitor document. We used his fame in the neighborhood for activism and mine as properly. We wished to make use of artwork as a base for neighborhood activism and hope. We wished folks to belief the model, come collectively and start speaking to 1 one other and breaking down silos. We’re a nationwide group, based in New York Metropolis and we did a few of our first convening in Florida, St. Louis and New York. We do a number of work in California. Due to COVID we don’t have a bodily workplace so we’re within the metaverse.”