"Judith Smith enhances our roadmap of the long civil rights era, charting the formation and rise of a renewed civil rights 'public' out of the scorched earth of the McCarthy era. Far more than a biography of Harry Belafonte as both activist and artist, Becoming Belafonte documents a web of critical collaborative relationships and the tight alignment of progressive cultural production and anti-racist activism from the Popular Front through the 1960s in theater, film, music, and, later, television. A rich, compelling, important book." -- Matthew Frye Jacobson, Yale University "I thought I knew Harry Belafonte pretty well, but Judith Smith's book has given me deeper insights into him. A wonderful portrait of Belafonte and his times." -- Robert DeCormier, musical director for Harry Belafonte, 1957-1961 "This is the book I've been waiting for: a penetrating, revelatory account of how this Harlem-born child of Jamaican immigrants became Harry Belafonte, the multiply talented singer, actor, and radical activist. Judith Smith brilliantly reveals all facets of the man, devoting as much attention to his original musical contributions and dramatic training as his political work. From her rich portrait of Harlem's cultural milieu to the exigencies of the Black Freedom movement, Smith embeds Belafonte firmly within the world that made him, delivering a fresh and original perspective on the man, the artist, and the citizen." -- Robin D. G. Kelley, author of Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original
JUDITH E. SMITH is Professor of American Studies at the University of Massachusetts Boston. Her explorations into postwar film, drama, radio, and television have appeared in various published essays and in Visions of Belonging: Family Stories, Popular Culture, and Postwar Democracy, 1940–1960. She is also the author of Family Connections: A History of Italian and Jewish Immigrant Lives in Providence, Rhode Island, 1900–1940 and coauthor of American Identities: An Introductory Textbook and The Evolution of American Urban Society.
"So engaging that readers will crave a sequel."
*Kirkus Reviews*
"The book’s considerable strength is Smith’s careful depiction of
the deci- sions and constraints Belafonte faced as a powerful
cultural figure...Becoming Belafonte is a well-written,
industriously researched study that is a valuable contribution to
the historiog- raphy of both the black freedom struggle and popular
culture in the pivotal postwar years."
*The Journal of Southern History*
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