Harry Belafonte once asked Black artists to push against gun violence — and they have

Harry Belafonte, the famed pop star who died Tuesday of congestive heart failure at 96 years old, helped bring calypso to the masses via his 1956 album "Calypso," which featured his unavoidable rendition of the traditional Jamaican song "Day-O (The Banana Boat Song)." But more central to his mission was uplifting those around him, specifically Black people trapped in the same systems of oppression he faced growing up in New York and Jamaica.

Belafonte played a key role in the civil rights movement, fundraising with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and later helping to launch an early voter registration drive in Mississippi. Years later in 1985, a legion of A-list singers from Michael Jackson to Bob Dylan to record "We Are the World," the success of which sent millions of dollars in humanitarian aid to Africa.