Harry Belafonte Joins Peace Walk

CINCINNATI (Belafonte.com) - Harry Belafonte smiled at calls of "Day-O'' as he participated in a peace walk through an inner-city Cincinnati neighborhood marred by rioting in April.

The 74-year-old singer, actor and activist known for his 1957 "Banana Boat Song,'' along with 25 others promoted the message of peace in the Over-the-Rhine neighborhood, where a police officer shot an unarmed black man on April 7, starting a three-day riot.
"I hope that this walk becomes a tradition,'' he said Saturday as some of the group stopped to buy fruit from a sidewalk vendor. "We want people to feel that they have been a part of the process of peace.''

Belafonte, active in the civil rights movement to end segregation and build racial equality in the 1950s and 1960s, said watching the violence and rioting on television bothered him.
"I was surprised,'' he said. "I thought things were a little more together here.''

Belafonte was in Cincinnati as part of a two-day Urban Peace & Freedom Summit, sponsored by the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center.