Harry Belafonte (RIP), James Baldwin, Marlon Brando & Sidney Poitier Talk About Civil Rights, 1963

Observe: Sure­ter­day Har­ry Bela­fonte, the civ­il rights activist, singer and actor, handed away at age 96. In his mem­o­ry, we’re convey­ing again a put up from our archive, one which fea­tures Bela­fonte and oth­er leg­ends dis­cussing the March on Wash­ing­ton, again in August, 1963. The movie above is now made avail­in a position by the US Nation­al Archives.

On the day of the his­toric “March on Wash­ing­ton for Jobs and Free­dom” (August 28, 1963), recognized right now as The Nice March on Wash­ing­ton, CBS aired a 30minute spherical­desk dis­cus­sion fea­tur­ing Har­ry Bela­fonte, James Bald­win, Mar­lon Bran­do, Charl­ton Hes­ton, Joseph L. Mankiewicz and Sid­ney Poiti­er.

The entire seg­ment is fas­ci­nat­ing, even and per­haps espe­cial­ly as a result of the converse­ers pur­sue their some­instances diver­gent agen­das (Hes­ton speaks opti­misti­cal­ly about peace­ful dis­despatched, Bran­do hopes the Civ­il Rights transfer­ment could result in repa­ra­tions for Native Amer­i­cans, whereas Bela­fonte warns omi­nous­ly that the Unit­ed States has now reached a “level of no return”). However it might be Joseph Mankiewicz, the sharpwit­ted author/director of All About Eve, who professional­vides one of many dis­cus­sion’s pithi­est strains: “Free­dom, true free­dom,” he says, “shouldn’t be giv­en by gov­ern­ments; it’s tak­en by the peo­ple.”

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