Quote

The USA has more people in prison that any other country, including countries with much larger populations. 13% of the population is black but 80% of the people in prison are black, mostly for soft crimes.

Harry Belafonte

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Harry Belafonte
Age: 97
Born: 1927
Born: March 1
Actor
Peace Activist
Recording Artist
Singer
Songwriter
Television Actor
Harlem
New York
King of Calypso
Harold George Bellanfanti Jr.
Crime
Crimes
Politics
Soft
Black
Larger
Country
Mostly
Much
Prison
People
Population
Countries
Populations
Including
Usa

More quotes by Harry Belafonte

Image
Without compromise repression would be defeated. Just as some cancers feed on hormones, compromise becomes the hormone of oppression.
Harry Belafonte
Image
Turning against the church I also had to turn against a lot of the teachings of people in my family who were very much of the church and caught in it, and every time I turned to find where resides the good in the church, all I saw was the demonic, the Lucifer of the journey.
Harry Belafonte
Image
The human spirit is resilient and truth - no matter how long you abuse it and how long you try to crush it - will, as Dr. King would say, rise up again, and in the final analysis will prevail.
Harry Belafonte
Image
The sham engineers of the music industry, who steer the wheels of public opinion, are driving the good features of calypso into the ground. I shudder to think what these greedy men will eventually do to this true art form.
Harry Belafonte
Image
I didn't like The Wiz and it wasn't because black people were doing it. I didn't like The Wiz because it was a badly made movie off a classic. Why are you remaking something unless you have something better in mind?
Harry Belafonte
Image
When I was 40 and looking at 60, it seemed like a thousand miles away. But 62 feels like a week and a half away from 80. I must now get on with those things I always talked about doing but put off.
Harry Belafonte
Image
Bin Laden didn't come from the abstract. He came from somewhere, and if you look where ... you'll see America's hand of villainy.
Harry Belafonte
Image
No matter what the greatest tyrant in the world, the greatest terrorist in the world, George W. Bush says, we're here to tell you: Not hundreds, not thousands, but millions of the American people ... support your revolution.
Harry Belafonte
Image
You can be arrested and not charged. You can be arrested and have no right to counsel.
Harry Belafonte
Image
We [Americans] move about the world arrogantly, calling wars when we want, overthrowing governments when we want. There is a price to be paid for it -- look at 9/11. [That] wasn't just bin Laden. Bin Laden didn't come from the abstract. He came from somewhere, and if you look where ... you'll see America's hand of villainy.
Harry Belafonte
Image
Wherever I found resistance to oppression, whether in Africa, in Latin America, certainly here in America in the South, I joined that resistance. I took part in the labor movement, in social movements, in the church community. I felt that it was the honorable thing to do and still do.
Harry Belafonte
Image
Through electing officials that will protect the Constitution and commit themselves to the rights of the people and the health of the nation, we will be able to ensure that no group of ideologues and no private sector institution can coopt our rights, take us into senseless wars and steal the nation from its people.
Harry Belafonte
Image
When I was born, I was colored. I soon became a Negro. Not long after that I was black. Most recently I was African-American. It seems we're on a roll here. But I am still first and foremost in search of freedom.
Harry Belafonte
Image
We've come to this dark time in which the new Gestapo of Homeland Security lurks here, where citizens are having their rights suspended.
Harry Belafonte
Image
Bring it on. Dissent is central to any democracy.
Harry Belafonte
Image
I've always been supportive of the right of Israel as a state, and I've always fought against anti-Semitism, even in my own community.
Harry Belafonte
Image
As a matter of fact, compromise is what oppression feeds on.
Harry Belafonte
Image
Although we had a lot of villainy here in America, Adolf Hitler was certainly the most visible illustration of what would happen if fascism went unchallenged.
Harry Belafonte
Image
I think being born in America and growing up exclusively within the American boundaries of race and race oppression is a very different experience for those of us who grew up under the boundaries of race and race experience in the Caribbean or for those who grew up in Africa.
Harry Belafonte
Image
More than once my mother would point out: Harry Belafonte is the best-looking man on the planet.
Harry Belafonte