Portrait of an Icon
Review of Becoming Belafonte: Black Artist, Public Radical

http://solidarity-us.org/atc/192/p5186/
Date Written:  2018-01-01
Publisher:  Against the Current
Year Published:  2018
Resource Type:  Article
Cx Number:  CX23270

A review of Becoming Belafonte: Black Artist, Public Radical by Judith E. Smith.

Abstract: 
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Excerpts:

The first half of Becoming Belafonte takes a look at Belafonte's early years of political and artistic development in New York City in the 1930s and 1940s. Smith tells the story of Belafonte's political awakening against the backdrop of police brutality in his Harlem neighborhood, segregation in the military, and labor battles.

When a young, politicized Belafonte discovers a hidden world of like-minded Black and white artists who are committed to using music and theater to combat racism and exploitation, his course is set. This constellation of activist-artists, many shaped by the Communist Party's cultural activism during the Popular Front period of the 1930s, provides a homebase and a context for Belafonte’s trajectory as an artist.

The second half of the book is an analysis of Belafonte's work during his years as a leading star in pop music and Hollywood. Belafonte thought strategically about how to use music, theater, and film to dismantle not just Jim Crow segregation, but white supremacy itself.

Smith uses that understanding to examine the intentions, politics, and impact of nearly every film and television performance from the mid-1950s through the mid-'60s.

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