Harry Belafonte
Harry Belafonte organized the contingent of celebrities who attended the march.
Harry Belafonte, a popular actor and Grammy Award-winning singer in the 1960s, used his star power to help bring other celebrities to the March on Washington.
“For myself personally — beyond raising money, beyond speaking at events that helped to raise money to bring citizens to the Mall — my task, my larger task, was to organize a cultural contingency to come to the March on Washington,” Belafonte reflected.
Besides reaching out to the stars themselves, Belafonte went to many of the studio heads in Hollywood to get prominent actors and actresses temporarily released from their duties so they could participate.
He was successful. The Hollywood list of attendees that day read like a who’s who of A-listers: Marlon Brando, Sidney Poitier, Lena Horne, Sammy Davis Jr., Charlton Heston and Burt Lancaster, who also gave a speech.
But having the Hollywood stars there wasn’t just for show or for increased media attention. It also helped calm President John F. Kennedy’s nerves about the march.
“I believe that their presence did a lot to assuage people who are preoccupied with the fact there could be violence,” Belafonte said.
“One of the things that I said in my conversations with the Kennedys in discussing why they should be more yielding in their support of our demonstration was the fact that there would be such a presence of highly profiled
artists — that that alone would put anxiety to rest,” he added.
“People would be looking at the occasion in a far more festive way.”
Belafonte continued his acting and singing career, and today, at 86, he is still an activist for human rights causes.
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