Harry Belafonte famous quotes

In the gun game, we are the most hunted. The river of blood that washes the streets of our nation flows mostly from the bodies of our black children,
-- Harry Belafonte

#Children #Gun #Rivers

You can cage the singer but not the song.
-- Harry Belafonte

#Music #Song #Singers

Where is the raised voice of black America? Why are we mute?
-- Harry Belafonte

#Voice #America #Black

I would hope with all my heart, that Jay Z not take personally what was said... I would like to take this opportunity to say to Jay Z and Beyonce: I’m wide open, my heart is filled with nothing but hope and the promise that we can sit and have a one-on-one to understand each other.
-- Harry Belafonte

#Heart #Opportunity #Promise

Our foreign policy has made a wreck of this planet. I'm always in Africa... And when I go to these places I see American policy written on the walls of oppression everywhere.
-- Harry Belafonte

#Wall #Wrecks #Oppression

When I was born, I was colored. I soon became a Negro. Not long after that I was black. Most recently I was African-American. It seems we're on a roll here. But I am still first and foremost in search of freedom.
-- Harry Belafonte

#Long #African American #Black

These children and their parents know that getting an education is not only their right, but a passport to a better future - for the children and for the country.
-- Harry Belafonte

#Country #Children #Educational

Children who have lost parents to HIV/AIDS are not only just as deserving of an education as any other children, but they may need that education even more. Being part of a school environment will prepare them for the future, while helping to remove the stigma and discrimination unfortunately associated with AIDS.
-- Harry Belafonte

#Children #School #Fighting

Each and every one of you has the power, the will and the capacity to make a difference in the world in which you live in
-- Harry Belafonte

#Differences #Making A Difference #World

Fascism is fascism. Terrorism is terrorism. Oppression is oppression.
-- Harry Belafonte

#Terrorism #Oppression #Fascism

We've come to this dark time in which the new Gestapo of Homeland Security lurks here, where citizens are having their rights suspended.
-- Harry Belafonte

#Dark #Rights #Gestapo

There's an old saying in the days of slavery, there are those slaves who lived on the plantation, and there were those slaves who lived in the house. You got the privilege of living in the house if you served the master to exactly the way the master intended to have you serve him. That gave you privilege. Colin Powell is permitted to come into the house of the master, as long as he will serve the master according to the master's dictates. Now, when Colin Powell dares to suggest something other than what the master wants to hear, he will be turned back out to pasture.
-- Harry Belafonte

#Long #House #Slavery

Bin Laden didn't come from the abstract. He came from somewhere, and if you look where ... you'll see America's hand of villainy.
-- Harry Belafonte

#Hands #America #Looks

To really know what progress we’re making for children, we have to know how many children we have to begin with. The simple act of counting is an expression of a country’s intent to take care of its people.
-- Harry Belafonte

#Country #Children #Simple

I like Colin Powell, I like his West Indian background, I like his intellect, I like a lot of things that he does and his style. What is at fault here is a policy that's taking this country to hell,
-- Harry Belafonte

#Country #Style #Faults

Artists are the gatekeepers of truth. We are civilization’s anchor. We are the compass for humanity’s conscience.
-- Harry Belafonte

#Artist #Anchors #Civilization

I grew up in a school system . . . where nobody understood the meaning of learning disorder. In the West Indies, I was constantly being physically abused because the whipping of students was permitted.
-- Harry Belafonte

#School #West #Students

Hitler had a lot of Jews high up in the hierarchy of the Third Reich. Color does not necessarily denote quality, content or value. [If] a black is a tyrant, he is first and foremost a tyrant, then he incidentally is black. Bush is a tyrant and if he gathers around him black tyrants, they all have to be treated as they are being treated.
-- Harry Belafonte

#Color #Tyrants #Black

I don't think that (U.S. President) George Bush...is a man of honor,
-- Harry Belafonte

#Men #Thinking #Honor

Anti-democracy...is a virus that exists, and pro-democracy is the antibody to that virus, and I think we have to become vigilant, and we have to stay on top of the issues of democracy and freedom.
-- Harry Belafonte

#Freedom #Thinking #Issues

Art in its highest form is art that serves and instructs society and human development.
-- Harry Belafonte

#Art #Society #Development

I am a man who perceives life in a certain way, a man who rejects things that defecate on humankind, who rejects anything that will not give people room for dissent.
-- Harry Belafonte

#Men #Justice #People

If I've impacted on one heart, one mind, one soul, and brought to that individual a greater truth than that individual came into a relationship with me having, then I would say that I have been successful.
-- Harry Belafonte

#Success #Heart #Soul

No matter what the greatest tyrant in the world, the greatest terrorist in the world, George W. Bush says, we're here to tell you: Not hundreds, not thousands, but millions of the American people ... support your revolution.
-- Harry Belafonte

#Tyrants #People #Support

I think [G.W.] Bush has a very selfish, arrogant point of view. I think he is interested in power, I think he believes his truth is the only truth, and that he will do what he wants to do despite the people.
-- Harry Belafonte

#Selfish #Believe #Thinking

Colin Powell's committed to come into the house of the master. When Colin Powell dares to suggest something other than what the master wants to hear, he will be turned back out to pasture.
-- Harry Belafonte

#House #Want #Masters

The only thing left for Barack Obama to do is to work like a third world dictator and just put all these guys in jail.
-- Harry Belafonte

#Jail #Guy #World

Through electing officials that will protect the Constitution and commit themselves to the rights of the people and the health of the nation, we will be able to ensure that no group of ideologues and no private sector institution can coopt our rights, take us into senseless wars and steal the nation from its people.
-- Harry Belafonte

#War #Rights #People

I not only think that they (U.S. leaders) are misguided, but I think they know exactly what they are doing and I think that they are men who are possessed of evil.
-- Harry Belafonte

#Men #Thinking #Evil

If you believe in justice, if you believe in democracy, if you believe in people's rights, if you believe in the harmony of all humankind - then you have no choice but to back Fidel Castro as long as it takes!
-- Harry Belafonte

#Believe #Rights #Long

The sham engineers of the music industry, who steer the wheels of public opinion, are driving the good features of calypso into the ground. I shudder to think what these greedy men will eventually do to this true art form.
-- Harry Belafonte

#Art #Men #Thinking

When I was 40 and looking at 60, it seemed like a thousand miles away. But 62 feels like a week and a half away from 80. I must now get on with those things I always talked about doing but put off.
-- Harry Belafonte

#Half #Week #Miles

More than once my mother would point out: "Harry Belafonte is the best-looking man on the planet.
-- Harry Belafonte

#Mother #Men #Planets

Bring it on. Dissent is central to any democracy.
-- Harry Belafonte

#Democracy #Dissent

You can be arrested and not charged. You can be arrested and have no right to counsel.
-- Harry Belafonte

This generosity that has been offered to the United States says very much about the Venezuelan spirit.
-- Harry Belafonte

#Usa #Generosity #United States

The USA has more people in prison that any other country, including countries with much larger populations. 13% of the population is black but 80% of the people in prison are black, mostly for soft crimes.
-- Harry Belafonte

#Country #Usa #People

Carmen Jones was the first all-Negro film that became a great box-office success. It established the fact that pictures with Negro artists, pictures dealing with the folklore of Negro life, were commercially feasible. This was a sign of growth that had occurred in the United States and throughout the world.
-- Harry Belafonte

#Artist #Office #Growth

Why are we mute? Where are our leaders, our legislators? Where is the church?
-- Harry Belafonte

#Leader #Church #Mute

We Have Got To Bring Corporate America To Its Knees
-- Harry Belafonte

#America #Knees #Globalization

I've always been supportive of the right of Israel as a state, and I've always fought against anti-Semitism, even in my own community.
-- Harry Belafonte

#Israel #Community #Supportive

We [Americans] move about the world arrogantly, calling wars when we want, overthrowing governments when we want. There is a price to be paid for it -- look at 9/11. [That] wasn't just bin Laden. Bin Laden didn't come from the abstract. He came from somewhere, and if you look where ... you'll see America's hand of villainy.
-- Harry Belafonte

#War #Moving #America

John say's it's James who started first, James tells the story in reverse. I drag my belt from off me waist, you should have heard dem screaming round de place.
-- Harry Belafonte

#Family #Stories #Firsts