Harry Belafonte, whose birth name was Harold George Bellanfanti Jr., was born in Harlem, New York to Melvine Love and Harold Bellanfanti, via Britannica, Sing Your Song. Melvine and Harold emigrated from the Caribbean islands of Martinique and Jamaica, and endured severe poverty while raising their son in Harlem, according to The New York Times. Even worse, Harry's father was an alcoholic and abusive toward his mother.
To cope with the abuse and poverty, Melvine found solace in the Catholic Church and sent Harry to parochial school. Harry found Sunday Mass to be "suffocating and interminable," but sat through it because his mother always took him to the Apollo Theater afterward, where he witnessed performances by Cab Calloway, Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Billie Holiday, and Ella Fitzgerald. "I could endure it if I knew that a few short hours later I'd be in the real cathedral of spirituality ... the Apollo," he told The New York Times.
In 1936, Melvine took Harry and his younger brother, Dennis, back to Jamaica, per The New York Times. Harry lived in Jamaica for several years but returned to New York City as a teen. After dropping out of high school because of dyslexia and working odd jobs for a while, The New Yorker states that he enlisted in the U.S. Navy, and returned to New York City once more in 1945. While working as a janitor, Belafonte happened to see a play that changed his life, per The History Makers.
