Daylight Come: Harry Belafonte and the World He Made

Joshua Jelly-Schapiro in conversation with Nadia Ellis How does an artist change the way the world sees a place, and ultimately, itself? Harry Belafonte was more than the voice behind “Day-O,” “Jamaica Farewell,” and “Jump in the Line.” The Harlem-born son of Caribbean immigrants brought the music of the islands into American popular culture, becoming a groundbreaking performer whose influence extended far beyond the stage. But behind the music was a life of extraordinary political conviction. From his friendship with Sidney Poitier to his pivotal support of Martin Luther King Jr. and the civil rights movement, Belafonte understood that fame could become a form of power, and that power could be put to work. In Daylight Come: Harry Belafonte and the World He Made, geographer and writer Joshua Jelly-Schapiro explores the remarkable intersections of music, race, migration, celebrity, and political activism, revealing how one artist helped shape both America's imagination of the Caribbean and the course of American history. Joining him is Nadia Ellis, UC Berkeley professor of English and author of Territories of the Soul: Queered Belonging in the Black Diaspora, whose work explores Black diasporic culture, performance, and belonging. The evening begins with an introduction from cultural anthropologist and Clio's founding member Cari Borja, drawing on her doctoral fieldwork in Jamaica to consider how art and performance carry histories, identities, and ideas across borders. Together, they'll explore a question at the heart of Belafonte's life: What happens when an artist becomes not only a voice for a culture, but a force capable of changing the world? An evening about music, memory, Jamaica, the Black diaspora, and the extraordinary possibilities and contradictions, of a life lived in the public eye. Joshua Jelly-Schapiro is a geographer and writer whose books include Daylight Come: Harry Belafonte and the World He Made; Names of New York: Discovering the City’s Past, Present, and Future Through Its Place-Names; and Island People: The Caribbean and the World. He was the co-creator, with Rebecca Solnit, of Nonstop Metropolis: A New York City Atlas, which in 2016 was awarded the Brendan Gill Prize from the Municipal Art Society. His work appears regularly in The New York Review of Books, The New Yorker, and The New York Times, among many other publications, and he is a fellow of the New York Institute for the Humanities. Jelly-Schapiro teaches journalism at New York University and is director of publishing at Pioneer Works in Brooklyn, where he hosts the popular Author Talks series and is coeditor in chief of Pioneer Works Broadcast. Nadia Ellis is a professor in the English Department at UC Berkeley. She's the author of Territories of the Soul: Queered Belonging in the Black Diaspora as well as essays on contemporary Black literature and performance. She is completing a new book about Jamaican religion, ethnography, and aesthetics.