Harry George Belafonte, Jr. is known in the history of the United States not only as a renowned musician or an actor but also a leading social activist of the Jamaican ancestry. In the world of music his finest contribution has been to frame, popularize and to restore the glory of the Carrieban musical style in the 1950’s. He has been termed as the “King of Calypso”. His admirers are scattered throughout the globe through the various echelon of the society. Belafonte is best known for his legendary creation of the song, the ‘Banana Boat Song’ with its signature lyric "Day-O". The aggrived men, of not only the United States but in the world over look upon him as their champion and crusader against the injutices or persecutions for ages.  He is a fiery advocator for civil rights and humanitarian causes and has never compromised with his ideology.

He was born in an impoverished family in the village of Aboukir in his mother’s native country of Jamacia, with his mother. He, however, grew up in the city of New York, attended the Geroge Washington High School, followed by his joining the Navy in the Second World War and serving the country’s cause in the battlefield. Inspite of hardships, even at the time of performing American Negro Theatre of which he was a pioneer, was a serious student in acting classes.
 
His muscial career has been infested with a lot of hardships but nothing could subdue his zeal. He was the first African-American man to win the prestigious Emmy award, with his first solo TV special Tonight with Belafonte (1959).  In the 1960s he appeared in a number of TV specials, alongside such artists as Julie Andrews, Petula Clark, Lena Home, and Nana Mosukori. He was also a guest star on a memorable episode of The Muppet Show in 1978, in which he sang his signature song "Day-O" on television for the very first time. This very episode is well marked for Belafonte’s singing of the spiritual song, "Turn the World Around", still performed with Muppets designed like African tribal masks. It has become one of the most famous performances in the series.

Throughout his life Belafonte has looked upon the renowned singer and activist Paul Robson as his idol. Inspite of being socially reputed he was never protected from the clutches of racial discriminaion like his mentor and was often harassed and humiliated . The inhuman traretment in the hands of the local administraion on trivial racial grounds made huim refuse to perform in South of the United States from 1954 until 1961. He channelized all his efforts to eradicate the curse of racial discrimination from the American society. In 1968 during a Petula Clark primetime television programme Belafonte appeared, when in the middle of the song Clark smiling briefly touched Belafonte's arm negating the social tradition of racial discrimination at once thereby creating a history. This radcial tone has always been percived along with his music as the spokesman of the sane people, even in its crusade against the present Bush administration, to him a harbinger of terrorism. In his own words, “  My social and political interests are part of my career. I cannot separate them. My songs reflect the human condition. The role of art isn't just to show life as it is, but to show life as it should be.”