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The Belafonte Fellowship

The singer Aloe Blacc smiling on stage at City Winery in NYC with a group of other students and musicians

The Belafonte Fellowship honors artists who possess the fierce commitment to social justice that The Action Lab Founding Board Member Harry Belafonte modeled throughout his life. Belafonte Fellows work closely with The Action Lab on a series of performances and programmatic engagements with our community of partners.

The Belafonte Fellowship

Highlights

The musician Aloe Blacc singing while another musician plays guitar

2022: Inaugural Belafonte Fellow Aloe Blacc

Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter Aloe Blacc inaugurated our Belafonte Fellowship in 2022, and has continued to be a dynamic and inspiring leader of our work across the Belafonte Initiative. He has worked to animate The Action Lab’s grounding of social justice movement work in the arts and culture through the Freedom Writers workshop that he started and by collaborating with our partners at Hudson Link to work and perform with the men’s choir at Sing Sing Correctional Facility.

See Aloe Blacc lead The Action Lab’s first Freedom Writers Workshop

Watch Sing Sing Men’s choir sing with Belafonte Fellow Aloe Blacc

2023 Belafonte Fellow: Ana Tijoux

In 2023, The Action Lab was thrilled to welcome our newest Belafonte Fellow Ana Tijoux, a Grammy-winning singer-songwriter whose powerful activism for progressive values has defined her career. Ana’s collaboration helped to make The Action Lab’s Liberation Summer this year a stirring success, just as she was the perfect headliner for the kickoff of The Action Lab’s La Tejedora Initiative, our new project in Puerto Rico, and our 2nd Anniversary Concert.

See Ana Tijoux helping us launch The Action Lab’s project in Puerto Rico

Take a look at our 2023 Liberation Summer events, including Ana in the Bronx!

Watch a clip of our 2nd Anniversary Concert, featuring Ana Tijoux

The musician Ana Tijoux on stage holding a microphone

Freedom Writers Workshop

In late 2022, The Action Lab held the Freedom Writers Songwriting Lab, where Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter, TAL Board Member and our inaugural Bellafonte Fellow Aloe Blacc worked with a group of New York City high school students to write and produce music through the lens of social justice. That Freedom Writers gathering inspired The Action Lab to make this program a recurring part of our Belafonte Initiative, and in 2023 Ana Tijoux hosted a similar Freedom Writers Workshop for emerging hip hop artists in upstate New York.

Watch Aloe Blacc perform with the first cohort of Freedom Fellows from Brooklyn Community Arts & Media High School

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Our Other Belafonte Programming

Freedom Forward Film Series

Liberation Summer

Celebrating Movement