DAYLIGHT COME

Life of the late Harry Belafonte, a man of parts.

Belafonte—a family name that morphed from Bellanfanti to Belanfonte and then Belafonte on its travels from Jamaica to New York—was “bigger than Elvis.” So writes geographer and student of all things Caribbean Jelly-Schapiro by way of an opening salvo. He has plenty of ammunition for the claim. For one thing, Belafonte’s Calypso, released in 1956, was the first million-selling LP in history. That album, of course, contained the “Banana Boat Song” that gives this fluent book its title, a song that remains popular 70-odd years later. Belafonte was also “the first Black movie star to become a matinee idol.” Moreover, writes Jelly-Schapiro, Belafonte was deeply instrumental in advancing the cause of civil rights, not only for his work as a fundraiser and advocate for Martin Luther King Jr. but also through using his popularity to integrate music, film, and television along with another child of Caribbean immigrants, Sidney Poitier. Becoming friends as teenagers, both Poitier and Belafonte had a reputation for pride, sometimes peppered with righteous anger, but both also forged their way on more or less their own terms. There were moments of self-doubt, as the author reveals, as when, in therapy, Belafonte asked, “Of all the black kids in Jamaica and Harlem, why had I been the one chosen to sit with leaders of state, who solicited my opinion?” The answers were many. Belafonte commanded respect to the very end, whether as a singer with an annual Las Vegas residency or as the philanthropist who raised $100 million for African famine relief with “We Are the World.” Jelly-Schapiro adds along the way that Belafonte, something of a Zelig, was even instrumental in bringing Barack Obama’s father from Kenya to the U.S., an act that changed history.

A welcome biography of an artist and activist who left an enduring legacy in countless endeavors.