17 February 2021
Newsdesk
Common, Chuck D, Aloe Blacc and Danny Glover are among the stars set to make appearances during a livestream virtual party in honour of actor/singer Harry Belafonte's 94th birthday.
Bernie Sanders and his wife Jane, Stacey Abrams, Tamika D. Mallory, Reverend Al Sharpton, Jackie Cruz, Aja Monet, Mysonne the General, Diane Nash, Carmen Perez-Jordan, DJ Carisma, Bryan Stevenson, Kerry Kennedy and Matt Post are also on the line-up for the 28 February event, which kicks off at 7pm ET.
Proceeds from the livestream will go to non-profit group the Gathering for Justice, which Belafonte founded in 2005 after witnessing a news report about a five-year-old Black girl who was handcuffed and arrested in a classroom in Florida for "being unruly".
"I didn’t want to found the Gathering, the Gathering found me. What we do is, in the exchange of information and informing each other, we begin to understand where we have strengths and where we have weaknesses. How do we fix our weaknesses, and how do we broaden our strengths?” Belafonte said back in 2012.
