Posted on 03/01/2006 7:51:24 AM PST by bwteim
Belafonte: Bush kept him from King rites
Legendary entertainer and civil rights activist Harry Belafonte on Tuesday explained his absence from Coretta Scott King's funeral.
Belafonte told reporters before a speech at Case Western Reserve University that President Bush influenced the King family to disinvite him from the funeral in suburban Atlanta on Feb. 7.
Belafonte, known to be a friend of Martin Luther King Jr., said he was told about the decision the day before the funeral, at which he had been scheduled to speak.
The King children made the final decision, Belafonte said, but they were "fiercely intimidated by the president's representatives."
Belafonte has been a vocal critic of the Bush administration.
SNIP SNIP
(Excerpt) Read more at cleveland.com ...
I hear violins playing in the background.
I don't believe this for one minute. There were plenty of Bush bashers there. Why would this nut have been excluded?
The man is a psychopath.
Yeah, can't have anybody there who would be critical of Bush. /sarc
Too bad Bush couldn't keep that sniveling Jimmy Carter away, to say nothing of Bubba and Her Heinous.
Fact or fiction?
No kidding. IT would have been an added attraction to have Harry verbally assaulting the Pres from the podium. Sorry he was "disinvited".
Perhaps he is in the early stages of senile dementia and the king family knows this.
In other words, even the King family has no use for this anti-American troll.
Full of ....
My druthers would have been Belafonte over McGavin, Knotts, or Weaver.
Why do I doubt the truthfulness of his statement?.........No one, Except maybe Hillary, would do such a vile thing..........
I hope it is true. Belafonte has called Bush a terrorist multiple times, and he called Powell and Rice house slaves. I hope Bush's people did everything they could to keep him out.
This Bush guy must be some all-powerful kind of deity. He's caused hurricanes, volcanic eruptions and now a washed up Calypso singer missed a funeral. Tsk, tsk!
This guy has a god complex. In the full article they mention that if Belafonte made his speech in Cleveland, his words would have fixed poverty in the city, what a guy!
Look forward to Harry's funeral, a double with Carter would be nice.
It is going to become a he said she said contest according to another article:
http://www.tennessean.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060216/COLUMNIST0107/602160390/1101/NEWS
"I called Belafonte to find out for myself if it was true, and he said it was,'' the Rev. C.T. Vivian, a veteran civil rights activist, told me Friday after calling to see if I could find out why Belafonte was not at the funeral. "I asked were you disinvited, and he [Belafonte] said, yes.
"The reason is that the president was not coming if Belafonte was going to be there. ...''
SAME ARTICLE:
That's just not true, according to a public relations spokesman who worked with the King family on services for Mrs. King."
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