MY
SONG
by
Harry Belafonte
No
autobiography is worth its salt unless it contains as much baring of soul as it
does factual accuracy and thorough, painstaking recounting of the subject’s
history. Harry Belafonte’s, a quite
recent publication, passes all these three tests magnificently as far as I am
concerned. In addition it turns out to
be quite event-filled. Without reading
it all the way through you could turn to almost any of the 443 pages at random
and land squarely in the middle of something either highly dramatic or historically
amazing and engrossing. Inch by inch,
mile by mile he covers his incredible life story without dry rhetorical
digressions or dandyish swagger. He is
ruthlessly honest about himself, painting a childhood picture that is shocking,
heartbreaking and full of unspeakable abuse, not to mention rank poverty, as
those formative years alternated between residences in both Jamaica and Harlem. The book may be quite long and thickly
detailed, but it never drags and never ceases to grip hard.
He
takes us along the circuitous path of his musical career, which started without
any support whatsoever from his difficult-to-please mother or his monstrous
father. He emerged as a truly self-made
man professionally. That career seems to
have evolved in tandem with his activism.
It is difficult to notice where the career leaves off and the activism
begins.
Some
may be drawn to it simply for what it has to say about how his style of music
was conceived. He is more than a calypso
singer. He drew on many elements to
establish himself as a leading pop vocalist.
He tells us how he launched his career without any formal voice training
or study and about the troubles he had keeping his throat healthy by way of a
few touch-and-go surgeries. He has
performed in the vast majority of countries in the western world and some in
other parts of the globe. Along the way
he made friends with countless individuals in government, in politics, in the
motion picture industry, in education, in religion, as well as in show
business. And he has won prestigious
awards – a Tony, an Emmy, the National Medal of Arts, and is a recipient of the
Kennedy Center Honors. His work as a
UNICEF ambassador is one he holds quite high and proudly in his personal
esteem.
Late
in the narrative Belafonte discloses something that just about knocked me
out. He says that he is not nor has ever
been a millionaire. Get that! What makes this so believable is his
recounting of the vast sums he has given away in support of the many causes and
social initiatives in which he has become involved, most especially the civil
rights movement. I was profoundly
touched by his depiction of how he and Martin Luther King became
co-revolutionaries. It was King who in
1956 initiated their first encounter by a long distance phone call, inviting
Belafonte to meet with him in Birmingham, Alabama in a church basement. There in one three hour meeting, just the two
of them, they forged a bond that held together for the remaining twelve years
of King’s life. Belafonte also poured
much of his financial support into the drive to free Nelson Mandela and to end
apartheid in South Africa. He even
reached into his pocket to promote the careers of other musical talents. These are but a few of his munificent
donations to enterprises about which he was passionate, not to mention his
hands-on participation in so many struggles for equality and justice.
And
passionate is a word that does not begin to describe his personality. He could be a real fire brand, at times
burning a little too hot for the good of what he was aiming to accomplish,
though he was never a Black Power extremist.
He is very candid in recounting some of his run-ins with fellow
activists who differed with him on methodology.
There is sadness, disappointment and tragedy in his life, but his triumphs
greatly exceed them. He admits that his
many travels away from home alienated him from his first two wives and
interfered with his relationships with his children. He was a reconciler for many and a
controversial figure for others. But I
believe the book’s flyleaf is accurate in saying that “he has led one of the
great American lives of the last century” and that the memoir “turns both a
loving and critical eye on our country’s cultural past.”
I
would like to make one final observation about this man. He has not only played a major role in
knocking down racial barriers; he has also transcended race in the appeal he
has had as a concert entertainer.
Several years ago, my wife Ruby and I attended a concert of his in
Baltimore, expecting to be one of the white minority members of the audience. But when we arrived, all we could see were
well dressed Caucasians in evening clothes and behaving as if they were
attending a symphony orchestra affair.
For a moment we wondered if we had come to the wrong theater or if
perhaps we were at the right theater on the wrong night. We checked our tickets just to be sure. They seemed to be in order. And once we stepped into the lobby, sure
enough there was the larger than life poster display of him towering over us. That was his audience, his night, and before
the evening was over, I had looked around and spotted no more than roughly one
black person for every ten white people in that hall. We all adored his performance, and he related
warmly and excitedly and with shrewd humor to everyone present.
I
cannot recommend “My Song” too highly for every free-thinking, culture savvy,
open-minded and open-hearted citizen of this or any other nation. I have read scores of biographies and
autobiographies in my lifetime and for the first time – yes, for the first time
– I have come across one that I would like to give a second reading. For me it is that rewarding. I hope it will be for many of you.