Looking at Harry Belafonte's 2001 visit to Cincinnati’s Over-the-Rhine

Jeff Suess, Cincinnati Enquirer
·2 min read
Entertainer and civil rights activist Harry Belafonte, who died Tuesday, toured Over-the-Rhine as part of a peace walk, Nov. 17, 2001, months after the civil unrest. Pictured, from left: the Rev. Damon Lynch III, Harry Belafonte, Ed Rigaud and Frederick T. Suggs Sr.
Entertainer and civil rights activist Harry Belafonte, who died Tuesday, toured Over-the-Rhine as part of a peace walk, Nov. 17, 2001, months after the civil unrest. Pictured, from left: the Rev. Damon Lynch III, Harry Belafonte, Ed Rigaud and Frederick T. Suggs Sr.
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Harry Belafonte, the “calypso king” singer and civil rights activist who died Tuesday at age 96, made several visits to Cincinnati in the wake of the civil unrest following the police shooting of Timothy Thomas, an unarmed Black man, in April 2001.

In November 2001, Belafonte walked the streets of Over-the-Rhine as part of a peace walk, accompanied by Rev. Damon Lynch III, Carl Westmoreland, Ed Rigaud and others.

Belafonte had been in town as part of the Urban Peace and Freedom Summit hosted by the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center.

The entertainer, who used his “Day-O” fame as a platform to draw attention to racial injustice, had also served as co-chair and spokesperson for the campaign to build the Freedom Center in Cincinnati.

His visit to Over-the-Rhine made an impression on Belafonte. Talking on CNN’s “Larry King Live” in 2002, Belafonte said, “It is my personal feeling that plantations exist all over America. If you walk into South Central Los Angeles, into Watts, or you walk into Over-the-Rhine in Cincinnati, you’ll find people who live lives that are as degrading as anything that slavery had ever produced. They live in economic oppression, they live in a disenfranchised way.”

Harry Belafonte talks with a man sitting on the stoop near 15th and Elm in Over-The-Rhine during a National Underground Railroad Freedom Center march to New Prospect Baptist Church in 2001.
Harry Belafonte talks with a man sitting on the stoop near 15th and Elm in Over-The-Rhine during a National Underground Railroad Freedom Center march to New Prospect Baptist Church in 2001.

Belafonte returned to Cincinnati in 2003 for a rally in Eden Park commemorating the 40th anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington. Belafonte had also spoken at the Lincoln Memorial before Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech.

“Forty years later, I am asked by many people, ‘How do you think it has gone?’” Belafonte said to the Eden Park crowd in 2003. “I make just one simple response. I say just go take one look at Over-the-Rhine in Cincinnati and tell me what you think Dr. King’s dream has become.”

Belafonte was also honored with Major League Baseball’s Beacon Award, along with sports legends Willie Mays and Billie Jean King, at the Civil Rights Game held at Great American Ball Park in 2010.

MLB Beacon Awards honorees Harry Belafonte (L-R), Billie Jean King and Willie Mays during the singing of the National Anthem at the Civil Rights Game at Great American Ball Park in 2010.
MLB Beacon Awards honorees Harry Belafonte (L-R), Billie Jean King and Willie Mays during the singing of the National Anthem at the Civil Rights Game at Great American Ball Park in 2010.

This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Looking at Harry Belafonte's 2001 Cincinnati Over-the-Rhine visit