Harry Belafonte was remembered far and wide in the last week as an artistic colossus, a giant of stage and screen, the first person to sell a million copies of an album, with “Calypso,” in 1956. But beneath the international acclaim was the story of a single New Yorker who contended with the indignities of racial discrimination at seemingly every turn in his long life, and who eventually helped alter the culture of the city – and the nation.
Belafonte, who died Tuesday at the age of 96, spoke at length to WNYC listeners over the years, about his successes as an artist, the indignities he faced both as a Black entertainer and ordinary citizen, and the passions that drove his civil rights activism. In the interviews, he talks about life in a changing New York and nation, from the civil rights era through to the present.
Senior Reporter Arun Venugopal took a tour through WNYC's radio archives, to hear Belafonte tell his own story. Here's what he found.
