Editing Harry Belafonte (section)

=== The Baldwin-Kennedy Meeting ===
Renowned author [[James Baldwin]] contacted Belafonte three years after John F. Kennedy's election. The purpose of the call was to invite Belafonte to a meeting to speak with [[United States Attorney General|Attorney General]] [[Robert F. Kennedy|Robert Kennedy]] about the continued plight of the Black people in America. This event was known as the [[Baldwin–Kennedy meeting|Baldwin-Kennedy Meeting]]. Belafonte met with fifteen others, including Kennedy and Baldwin, in Kennedy's [[Central Park South]] apartment on May 24, 1963.<ref name=":272"/>

The other members included were Thais Aubrey, David Baldwin, Edwin Berry, [[Kenneth and Mamie Clark|Kenneth Clark]], Eddie Fales, [[Lorraine Hansberry]], Lena Horne, [[Clarence B. Jones|Clarence Jones]], [[Burke Marshall]], [[Henry Morgenthau III]], [[June Shagaloff Alexander|June Shagaloff]], Jerome Smith, and [[Rip Torn]].<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Henderson Paul L |first1=A. Scott |title=James Baldwin: Challenging Authors |last2=Thomas |first2=Paul L. |last3=Reese |first3=Charles |publisher=Rotterdam: Birkhäuser Boston |year=2014 |isbn=9789462096172 |edition=1st |volume=5 |pages=121–136 |chapter=8. James Baldwin: Artist as Activist and the Baldwin/Kennedy Secret Summit of 1963 }}</ref>

The guests engaged in cordial political and social conversation. Later, the talk led to an investigation of the position of Black people in the [[Vietnam War]]. Offended by Kennedy's implication that Black men should serve in the war, Jerome Smith scolded the young Attorney General. Smith, a Black man and Civil Rights advocate had been severely beaten while fighting for the movement's cause, which enforced his strong resistance to Kennedy's assertion, frustrated that he should fight for a country that did not seem to want to fight for him.<ref name=":272"/>

A short time after the confrontation, Belafonte spoke with Kennedy. Belafonte then told him that even with the meeting's tension, he needed to be in the presence of a man like Smith to understand Black people's frustration with [[patriotism]] that Kennedy and other leaders could not understand.<ref name=":272"/>