The Current20:16Remembering singer and activist Harry Belafonte
For one week in 1968, it was Harry Belafonte’s interview skills, not his singing or acting, that grabbed headlines. Belafonte guest hosted The Tonight Show and interviewed a number of Black icons, including Martin Luther King Jr.
“It’s kind of hard for us to believe now in 2023, but the airwaves were still very segregated at the time. And talk shows were definitely all hosted by white men,” Yoruba Richen, director of a 2020 documentary about that week called The Sit In, told Matt Galloway on The Current.
Belafonte, who was known as a performer and
