Research Catalog

Details

Description

1. 40.87 linear feet (113 boxes, 4 oversize folders, 4 tubes); 7.9 megabytes (124 computer files)

Summary

1. Harry Belafonte was a Jamaican-American musician, actor, and activist best known for popularizing calypso music with international audiences, and his involvement in the American Civil Rights movement. His collection contains project files, correspondence, scrapbooks, press materials, scores, lyrics, and scripts that chronicle his career as a singer, songwriter, actor, public speaker, and advocate for political and humanitarian causes. Belafonte's papers reveal the business aspects of his performance projects, source material for his acting and singing career, and organizing efforts associated with the political causes he championed.

Subject

1. Musicians
2. Civil rights activists
3. Actors
4. Scripts (documents)
5. Scores
6. Programs
7. Posters
8. Notated music
9. Correspondence
10. Clippings (information artifacts)
11. Albums (Books)
12. South Africa > Politics and government > 20th century
13. Television personalities
14. Screenwriters
15. Politicians > United States > Correspondence
16. Musicians, Black
17. Jamaican Americans
18. Folk musicians
19. Calypso (Music)
20. Authors, Black
21. African Americans in the performing arts
22. African Americans > Political activity
23. African Americans > Civil rights > History
24. African American singers
25. African American civil rights workers
26. Actors, Black
27. Robeson, Paul, 1898-1976
28. Poitier, Sidney
29. Mandela, Nelson, 1918-2013
30. King, Martin Luther, Jr., 1929-1968

Genre/Form

1. Albums (Books)
2. Clippings (information artifacts)
3. Correspondence.
4. Notated music.
5. Posters.
6. Programs.
7. Scores.
8. Scripts (documents)

Call number

1. Sc MG 933

Source (note)

1. Purchased from Harry Belafonte in 2019.

Location of other archival materials (note)

1. Harry Belafonte photograph collection, SCP 186084, Photographs and Prints Division, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, The New York Public Library, https://archives.nypl.org/scp/186084.

Author

1. Belafonte, Harry, 1927-2023, creator.

Title

1. Harry Belafonte papers.

Production

1. 1872-2017, bulk 1946 - 2005.

Type of content

1. text
2. still image

Type of medium

1. unmediated
2. computer

Type of carrier

1. sheet
2. other

Location of other archival materials

1. Materials Separated from the Resource: Audio and moving image materials have been transferred to the Moving Image and Recorded Sound (MIRS) Division: audio and moving image materials. For more information, please contact the division at schomburgaudiovisual@nypl.org or 212-491-2270. Photographs have been transferred to The Schomburg Center's Prints and Photographs division. Artwork and artifacts have been transferred to The Schomburg Center's Art and Artifacts division.
2. Harry Belafonte photograph collection, SCP 186084, Photographs and Prints Division, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, The New York Public Library, https://archives.nypl.org/scp/186084.

Source

1. Purchased from Harry Belafonte in 2019.

Connect to:

1. Finding aid

Occupation

1. Actors.
2. Civil rights activists.
3. Musicians.

Research call number

1. Sc MG 933