Harry Belafonte Issues A Frightening Warning About America’s Future

Ed Mazza
Updated

Legendary entertainer and civil rights activist Harry Belafonte used his final public appearance to issue a warning about the future of the nation.

According to The Guardian, Belafonte, 90, said “the country made a mistake” when it elected Donald Trump as president.

“I think the next mistake might very well be the gas chamber and what happened to Jews [under] Hitler is not too far from our door,” he was quoted as saying.

Belafonte gave a wide-ranging talk at the Carnegie Music Hall in Pittsburgh on Friday about his life, his music and his decades-long fight for social justice.

He also sounded an optimistic note.

“We have achieved a lot in my lifetime,” Belafonte said, per The Guardian. “Dr. King was not about nothing. Eleanor Roosevelt was not about nothing. I think in the final analysis that we shall overcome because what we did is … we left a harvest that generations to come [will] reap. That they have not yet plowed. That they have not yet harvested.”

Belafonte was the first African American to win an Emmy Award. “The King of Calypso” was also the recipient of several Grammys as well as a Tony. In 2014, he received the honorary Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award at the Academy Awards.

A member of the audience posted an audio recording of the Pittsburgh event:

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