The Catholic Church had strict racial attitudes and intolerance for anybody who was not Catholic. When I look at a lot of Black ministers and what went on in the Black church, I was more caught up with those who were in Cadillacs and shiny suits than I was with those who were Kingian in their style.
Harry BelafonteEach time we arrive at a new level in extricating ourselves from economic, social, spiritual domination, we have a moment when we dance in the world of these new experiences, only to find that the music soon stops, the dance ends, and we're struggling once again to save ourselves from being thrown back into those conditions.
Harry BelafonteI delighted in the music of Africa, the earliest of the slave plantation songs, the transformation into Christianity and all that Christianity brought to the lives of the Africans who were forced to come to America.
Harry BelafonteThe 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 BelafonteI think America offers a dream that cannot be fulfilled as easily anywhere else in the world as it could be fulfilled here. Although oppression was common to all of us, those styles of oppression gave us the opportunity to see the world in dimensions we didn't quite see growing up in any one place.
Harry Belafonte