Legendary artist and human rights activist Harry Belafonte will speak at 7 tonight at the Knoxville Civic Center Auditorium. The event is free, but latecomers may miss the chance of a lifetime.
“The doors open at 6,” said Dale Dunn, general manager of the facility. He said there are 2,400 seats available. When they are full, the doors will be closed.
The program, titled “An Evening with Harry Belafonte,” will begin with Belafonte’s talk and then move into time for questions from the audience.
“We’ll have two mics in the audience aisles,” said Demetrius Richmond, graduate advisor for the Black Cultural Programming Committee. The committee is sponsoring the event along with the Knoxville News Sentinel.
“We’re trying to make this a yearly event,” Richmond said. The committee, which brought the poet and writer Maya Angelou to campus last year, calls this part of their Legend Lecture Series, which seeks to bring one legendary individual to campus every year.
Belafonte will speak from his life experiences. Though the date of the lecture falls on Sept. 11, Richmond said of Belafonte speaking on the subject of 9/11, “That has not been planned.”
Belafonte will speak from his life experiences and share his vision.
The singer, actor (Broadway, TV and film) and producer has devoted his life to humanitarianism. He was a close friend of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. as well as chairman of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Fund. President John F. Kennedy named him cultural advisor to the Peace Corps.
In 1987 he became the second American to serve as a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador. In 1990 he served as the host of the United Nations’ World Summit on the Child, where world leaders discussed the futures of the children of the world. He performed a concert for UNICEF at a symposium in Zimbabwe designed to bring attention to the needs of children in Southern Africa.
Belafonte received a Danny Kay Award from the U.S. Committee for UNICEF, which recognized him for being a part of the artistic and entertainment world contributing to the service of the world’s children.
Apart from his repeatedly sold-out world concert tours, Belafonte has marked the music world by having the first album in history to sell more than one million copies, “Calypso” (1955), which started a craze in the U.S.
In other firsts, Belafonte’s music show, “Tonight with Belafonte,” made him the first African-American to win an Emmy. He was the first African-American to create and produce a TV show, the CBS special “The Strollin’ Twenties.”
In his stage acting career, he won a Tony Award for his Broadway performance in “John Murray Anderson’s Almanac.”
Belafonte has appeared in numerous films including “Bobby,” which will be released in November this year.
Due to his artistic abilities, Belafonte holds honorary degrees including an Honorary Doctor of Music Degree from Atlanta’s Morehouse College and holds an Honorary Doctor of Fine Arts Degree from SUNY Purchase.
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the Committee for United Negro Relief, the American Jewish Congress, the Boy Scouts of America and the Peace Corps have all honored him. He holds a Dag Hammerskjold Peace Medal, a Martin Luther King, Jr. Peace Prize and a Kennedy Center Honors for Excellence in the Performing Arts Award. He received the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Grammy Awards in 2000.
Belafonte’s combination of artistry and activism has made him a national treasure, and his talk is an invaluable opportunity for students to gain insights into his life, beliefs and wisdom.
