DANIEL WONG UCLA Thurgood Marshall Award honoree
Harry Belafonte, right, speaks with NFL
hall-of-famer Jim Brown at Thursday’s event.
By Michelle Kroes
Daily Bruin Contributor
UCLA’s Center for African American Studies honored
entertainer and activist Harry Belafonte at a fund-raising dinner
last Thursday.
“I have no tolerance for injustice,” Belafonte said.
“I don’t know how to accommodate it. And so, I have
become part of the force that inhibits its path.”
As the recipient of UCLA’s Thurgood Marshall award,
Belafonte presented the 12th annual Thurgood Marshall lecture,
which centered on experience of human rights in the world and
America’s role therein.
“He is a voice for the African American people,”
said Osayi Ehigiator, a first-year American literature student.
“Hearing him is an opportunity for us to know the advances
we’ve made ““ it builds our self-respect and relates to
other students our heritage.”
Belafonte has directed his life toward the pursuit for greater
justice despite the setbacks he has faced in the past.
In one account, Belafonte spoke about the disappointment in
discovering that his fight in World War II for the U.S. and its
democracy only maintained his unequal stature. This, however, did
not defeat him, but rather pushed him to forward his cause for
justice.
“After the war we quickly learned what the score
was,” Belafonte said. “But it soon filled us with
militancy and spirit.”
The struggle for freedom has taken Belafonte through war,
segregation, McCarthyism and many more challenges against race.
“My life has been part of a remarkable journey, part of
the oppression that endured and endures,” he said.
He has seen this oppression throughout the world in places as
far away as Africa and as close as this campus. He told his
audience that when he was asked by UCLA to speak to faculty and
students earlier that afternoon, only 20 people showed in an
auditorium that seated 200 to 300 people.
“I came with expectations and hope, but the attendance was
so lacking,” he said.
Belafonte’s participation in the struggle for human rights
is globally respected. He has taken up many global causes but was
most involved with the struggle for civil rights in the United
States, as well as Africa’s various freedom movements.
In all his activities, Belafonte has befriended many great
leaders, including the late Martin Luther King Jr.
On one occasion, he remembers King’s words, which inspired
him to not only fight for equality but more importantly, to alter
the system altogether.
“We have fought long and hard for integration. The mission
is righteous and I believe it will survive. But a new revelation
has come upon me, we are integrating into an already burning
house,” Belafonte quoted King saying before his campaign in
Memphis mounted.
King, who was disturbed by his own thought, asserted that this
situation could be resolved if the fires were extinguished.
“He was healed immediately by saying that African
Americans needed to be firemen,” Belafonte said.
Likewise, Belafonte not only has wanted to lessen the racial
divide but also to effectively change a system that allows for such
disparities.
In the past, Belafonte has been honored with the Martin Luther
King Jr. Peace Prize and was also the first recipient for the
Nelson Mandela Courage Award.
The Thurgood Marshall lecture series was established at UCLA in
1986 to celebrate the contributions of Supreme Court Justice
Thurgood Marshall, who stands then and now as a 20th century
symbol, said Claudia Mitchell-Kernan, dean of the graduate
division.
“He reminds us to use knowledge to make a
difference,” she said.
All the proceeds from the fund-raising dinner will go to student
scholarships, faculty research and ongoing activities for the
center.
“The center is using the opportunity of this lecture to
honor a distinguished activist in civil rights and to raise support
for our programs,” said Richard Yarborough, director of the
Center for African American Studies. “We want to make a
stronger difference on and off campus.”