| Becoming Belafonte: Black Artist, Public Radical Contributor(s): Smith, Judith E. (Author) |
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ISBN: 1477310517 ISBN-13: 9781477310519 Publisher: University of Texas Press OUR PRICE: $23.70 Product Type: Paperback - Other Formats Published: May 2016 |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Biography & Autobiography | Entertainment & Performing Arts - Biography & Autobiography | Social Activists - Biography & Autobiography | Cultural, Ethnic & Regional - General |
| Dewey: B |
| Series: Discovering America |
| Physical Information: 1" H x 5.5" W x 8.9" (1.20 lbs) 368 pages |
| Themes: - Ethnic Orientation - African American - Chronological Period - 20th Century - Chronological Period - 21st Century - Topical - Black History |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: A son of poor Jamaican immigrants who grew up in Depression-era Harlem, Harry Belafonte became the first black performer to gain artistic control over the representation of African Americans in commercial television and film. Forging connections with an astonishing array of consequential players on the American scene in the decades following World War II--from Paul Robeson to Ed Sullivan, John Kennedy to Stokely Carmichael--Belafonte established his place in American culture as a hugely popular singer, matinee idol, internationalist, and champion of civil rights, black pride, and black power. In Becoming Belafonte, Judith E. Smith presents the first full-length interpretive study of this multitalented artist. She sets Belafonte's compelling story within a history of American race relations, black theater and film history, McCarthy-era hysteria, and the challenges of introducing multifaceted black culture in a moment of expanding media possibilities and constrained political expression. Smith traces Belafonte's roots in the radical politics of the 1940s, his careful negotiation of the complex challenges of the Cold War 1950s, and his full flowering as a civil rights advocate and internationally acclaimed performer in the 1960s. In Smith's account, Belafonte emerges as a relentless activist, a questing intellectual, and a tireless organizer. From his first national successes as a singer of Calypso-inflected songs to the dedication he brought to producing challenging material on television and film regardless of its commercial potential, Belafonte stands as a singular figure in American cultural history--a performer who never shied away from the dangerous crossroads where art and politics meet. |
Contributor Bio(s): Smith, Judith E.: - 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. |