Letters to the Editor: Remembering Harry Belafonte in 1965: ‘I’m going back to Harlem where it’s safe’

To the editor: I was saddened to hear of the death of Harry Belafonte. It brought back the memory of a night the Watts riots were underway in August 1965, when my wife and I went to hear him sing at the Greek Theater.

As we drove on the 10 Freeway toward downtown from Baldwin Hills, we could see the smoke rising over the city. When I reminded my wife of this fact this week after we learned of Belafonte’s death, she replied with a comment he made during the performance, which we both remembered with extreme clarity after all these years: “I’m going back to Harlem where it’s safe.”

Rest in peace, Harry.

Robert Rosen, Granada Hills

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To the editor: Many years go I narrated Belafonte’s Lifetime Achievement Award at the Grammys.

He had introduced calypso to America in the mid-’50s, so I asked him that night why he never recorded any Reggae music. “Oh,” he sighed, “I always wanted to be ahead of the curve, so when Jamaicans like Jimmy Cliff and Desmond Dekker started to make their breakthrough, I didn’t want it to appear as if I were stealing their thunder. But as I look back, I should have.”

I replied, “Imagine if you had covered ‘Rivers of Babylon’ in 1968 — you could have broken Reggae five years earlier in North America.”

“Don’t remind me,” he said as he walked away.

A true giant, not only as an entertainer, but as a moral hero.

Roger Steffens, Echo Park

The writer is a Reggae archivist and former DJ at KCRW.