Social justice can be as simple as picking up dog excrement.
“In kindergarten, we had this unit that was called ‘Agents of Change,’ and we had to find something that we saw wrong in the world—but, I guess, specifically Manhattan or New York—and we wanted to try to right those wrongs,” Amadeus Belafonte says. “I always noticed that, a lot of the time, there was dog poop on the sidewalks, and no one would pick it up.”
Amadeus told his grandfather—the late singer, actor and activist Harry Belafonte—about his plan to change the world through a simple flyer campaign that urged Manhattan dog owners to pick up after their pets. Harry was thrilled.
“He was always wondering what we were doing in terms of rising up, in a sense. I was in kindergarten,” says Amadeus, now 17. “This was a smaller thing, but I told him and he loved it.”
“He placed them, too,” says Malena Belafonte, Amadeus’ mother and Harry’s daughter-in-law. “He was like, ‘We got a real social justice kid here.’ He’s like, ‘I always stepped in poop, and it really bothered me. I’m really happy that you are now trying to take that on.’”
Now, the Belafonte family is using a multigenerational approach to make the world better through the efforts of The Belafonte Family Foundation (BFF), established in 2020 by Malena; Harry’s son, David; and Harry’s grandchildren, Sarafina and Amadeus.
The Activism of Harry Belafonte
When people think of Harry Belafonte, they mostly think about his music. When my children were toddlers, I used to put on Jump in the Line, and we would have a dance party in the living room. As we shook our bodies to the King of Calypso’s energetic warbling, we were simply right there, enjoying the way the tune spoke to us at a cellular level.
Harry’s rendition of the Jamaican folk song Day-O (The Banana Boat Song) is its best-known version, and its chipper melody is beloved by many. But when unpacked, the lyrics of the song dissect the labor of Black people in the colonized Caribbean as they load bananas onto boats until the sun comes up.
Through his career as a singer and an actor, the Harlem-born child of Caribbean immigrants worked tirelessly for the civil rights movement and championed social justice—up until he died in 2023 at the age of 96.
Multigenerational pillars
The Belafonte Family Foundation is a multigenerational project that seeks to create access and opportunity across multiple pillars representing causes dear to family members.
This philanthropy spans across “pillars that are diverse but not unrelated,” according to BFF. The foundation offers a variety of programming that addresses human trafficking, domestic violence, mental health support, education and access to healthy foods.
Although the majority of the pillars are still being developed, the organization announced three full-ride scholarships to students from Haiti at their inaugural gala in October 2023. The scholarship requires that recipients return to Haiti and use their education to serve their community.
“They’re furthering and finishing their education in engineering, nursing, these different areas to bring their services back into the Haitian community,” David says. “It’s a condition that is attached to that…. They’re living with purpose and making it better where they are.”
Additionally, BFF is developing a scholarship to fund martial arts programming for youth. Bright Road Mentoring through Martial Arts is named for the 1953 film Bright Road, Harry’s first feature film. BFF has partnered with Mid-Hudson Valley Camp and Academia de la Costa in the Dominican Republic to develop martial arts programming for youth.
“My preference would be to create healthy humans rather than repair ones that are already broken,” David says. “It was important for me to find ways to bring what I learned through my experiences as a man and as a martial artist, and come up with a mentoring program that we could bring to these kids [who] couldn’t afford to have that piece of the puzzle.”
Another program named for the film will be the Bright Road Farms, a container farming initiative that will provide education on vertical farming and equipment to communities that need healthy produce.
“While the programs are very far reaching and they just span a lot of different topics, the red thread is about creating access,” Sarafina says. “What is very important about Bright Road Farms is the fact that it is creating access to these places where there are food deserts.”
BFF is also developing the following pillars: a house of healing, which will serve survivors of sex trafficking and domestic violence; an online space for youth struggling with mental health; and a service that functions like “Meals on Wheels but for legal advice”—for people who cannot afford to hire attorneys.
The foundation is currently funded through strategic partnerships and has partnered with Sony Music Group and the company’s Global Social Justice Fund.
Preserving a legacy
BFF is not tied to any political campaigns or directly affiliated with any political parties.
“Harry’s politics were very specific, and he was vocal about that,” David says. “But the lanes were very separate and clear. That is something we try to apply to what we’re doing. It is about creating a quality-of-life scenario.”
But Harry’s legacy was always rooted in social justice and his family does not shy away from that.
“We come from one of the first big Black legacies, and he was always very vocal about what his politics were,” Sarafina says. “His existence was political and so is ours, as an offshoot and as an interracial family in the United States.”
Learn more about opportunities to volunteer, serve on committees or partner to create programming at belafontefamilyfoundation.org.
Photo of (L-R) Amadeus, Sarafina, Malena and David Belafonte by George Alex Popescu and Paul Tirado
