In a crowded Spaulding Auditorium, entertainer and activist Harry Belafonte delivered the keynote address for the College's celebration of Martin Luther King Jr. Day on Monday night. Belafonte issued a call to action, exhorting young people in the audience to speak the truth and embrace activism.
Belafonte received a standing ovation upon entering the auditorium.
He said that he came not only to speak about the global political climate but "to suggest to the young people who are here that your best friend is truly radical thought. You must learn to move outside the box."
Belafonte insisted that the solution to changing the current political machine lies in alternative views and that he would embrace any that joined this cause. He also encouraged students not to be afraid of the word revolution because, he said, the country was founded on it. At the same time, he told students that non-violence is the best weapon that they can wield.
"Dr. King's teaching are the best we ever had, others can do it, others can parallel," Belafonte said. "But it doesn't get any better than that."
Belafonte recalled how when he and other veterans of World War II returned home, they continued to be met with racial opposition. He said this group adopted a violent and reactionary mindset until they came in contact with King. King persuaded them to adopt a much "richer methodology."
"It was an odd thing for us to hear about non-violence, we had been conceived in a world that knew nothing but that [violence]," Belafonte said.
Belafonte spoke of the last time that King and he spoke face-to-face, an interaction during which King remarked that they were integrating into a nation that was a burning house, and that it was their responsibility to be firemen.
Belafonte insisted that young people possess enough information to take decisive action.
"What do you need to know to engage you?" he asked. "What do you need to know, to know that there is a difference that needs to be made?"
He said that the next great revolutionary was someone "buried in our midst" and that young people must step up because the adult leadership of today has already proven itself bankrupt. He asked students to question what role they truly play as activists and if they actually seek engagement at all.
Belafonte said that he has used his role as celebrity to illuminate society. He said he must accept the fact that he will lose friends who are uncomfortable with some of his comments, specifically those that threaten their security. He spoke out against former Secretary of State Colin Powell, he said, not as a result of a personal agenda but rather because he believes Powell failed to refuse to become an active participant in oppression of non-whites.
Belafonte said that Powell did not make sure "that the rest of us left on the plantation are aptly spoken for," a reference to a comment he made in a speech in 2002 when he called him a house slave.
Powell, Belafonte argued, knew that his speech regarding weapons of mass destruction before the leaders of the United Nation was untrue.
Belafonte said that he did not resent those who chose to discuss his words in the media.
"[The media] really are my only barometer for knowing how well I am doing," Belafonte said. "Because if they spend this much time coming after me, putting another coloration on what I said, that means then someone got provoked."
Even though others have chosen not to speak out, Belafonte said those who do have had to pay a price.
"Being a messenger, you forever linger in someone's frame of distaste, so you don't get invited to dinner often," Belafonte said in reference to those that felt he misused his platform. "I personally thought that by the time I got to this place in my life I'd be down on the Caribbean on the beach, sipping a rum."
In another criticism of the Bush administration, Belafonte also spoke of Vice President Dick Cheney's disdain for the creation of Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
College President James Wright also spoke Tuesday night, praising Dartmouth's resolve to make a difference, after a performance by the Rockapellas of two freedom songs.
Robert Cheeks '07, president of the Afro-American society, presided over the event as ambassador of ceremonies.
Belafonte's address was part of Dartmouth's extensive celebration of King, titled "Lift Every Voice: Freedom's Artists and the Ongoing Struggle for Civil Rights." In past years, speakers have included Dr. James A. Forbes Jr., Dorothy Allison and Cornel West.
