BLACK BLOGGAH

By now, no doubt, you have heard that Harry Belafonte was "un-invited" to the Coretta Scott King funeral when George Bush said he would attend. I keep asking myself, "Why didn't the King children un-invite Bush?" How the King Children could publicly dis a long-time family friend who watched over their future and who was as close as any to their mother mystifies me. Shame on them.

Although I'm sure such a slight had to hurt to the core, Belafonte has not been publicly bitter. Rather, he has called for self reflection. He has called on those movement soldiers in whose shadow the King children have grown up to think together on how such a situation could have come to pass. In forums he has participated in recently, such as the one at Cooper Union with Walter Mosley and Tavis Smiley's the State of the Black Union event, Belafonte continues to inspire people to renew their commitment to freedom, to justice, to equality and to the moral duty to continuously point out the gulf between the ideals America espouses and the realities she purveys. Moreover, with gumption and extraordinary media savvy he has inserted his clarion into the media din and spoken truth to power. And although, when Mosley suggested that Belafonte would be a great president, he balked, I can think of no other Black leader with the dignity, courage, intelligence, candor, wit and commitment as Harry Belafonte. May he live a long life...God knows we need him.