Harry Belafonte was friends with Dr. Martin Luther King.
His album Calypso held the first line on the Billboard 31 for 200 weeks in a row. He was friendly with Fidel Castro and supported Cuba, arguing that it was an example of achieving freedom against all odds. He publicly called President George W. Bush "the main terrorist in the world" and it was beautiful and honest. The idea to record a video for the song We Are the World also belongs to Belafonta.