Smith, Judith E.

OUR SYNOPSIS: Judith E. Smith tells the story of Harry Belafonte, illuminating his “emergence as a working black artist and public radical from his early musical performances in the second half of the 1940s through his rise to stardom in the 1950s and his uses of celebrity in the 1960s.” (2) She emphasizes that “As a radical Black artist, he was deeply aware of the power of popular cultural forms to deliver crucial messages about citizenship and national belonging.” (5) His involvement with the American Negro Theater (ANT) starting in 1946 was his gateway into arts activism and introduced him to movement mentors such as Paul Robeson. As a theater student at Dramatic Workshop, he was also exposed to active music scenes rooted in Black and working-class culture. It was through singing jazz that he first gained substantial income and he gradually expanded his genres, especially gravitating to folk music. Activism was part of his work from the start as he advocated and personally pursued greater opportunities for Black artists. Smith shows how his rise to stardom happened alongside civil rights breakthroughs like Brown v. Board in 1954, which challenged segregation in all areas of American life. By blending Black-identified music together with mainstream and white-identified genres, his work itself embodied cultural integration of American society. He was also headlining civil rights events and demonstrations, especially by 1960. He also started producing films around this time and created his own production company that foregrounded Black stories.