Harry Belafonte, a singer, songwriter and groundbreaking actor who started his entertainment career belting, Day O, in his 1950s hit song “Banana Boat” before turning to political activism, has died at the age of 96, the New York Times reported.
The cause of Belafonte’s death was congestive heart failure, his longtime spokesperson Ken Sunshine told the Times on Tuesday.
As a Black leading man who explored racial themes in 1950s movies, Belafonte would later move on to working with his friend Martin Luther King Jr during the United States civil rights movement in the early 1960s.
He became the driving force behind the celebrity-studded, famine-fighting hit song, We Are the World, in the 1980s.
Belafonte once said he was in a constant state of rebellion that was driven by anger.
“I’ve got to be a part of whatever the rebellion is that tries to change all this,” he told the…
