Rick Diamond / Getty ImagesIn the 1950s, Tony Bennett watched with dismay as Black musicians like Nat King Cole and Duke Ellington were denied admission to concert hall dining rooms and hotels. The injustice he witnessed infuriated the young singer.
"When the march started, I had a strange sense of déjà vu," Bennett wrote in his 304-page autobiography."I kept flashing back to a time twenty years earlier when my buddies and I had fought our way into Germany." Serving in World War II, Bennett's friendship with a Black servicemen was condemned by white Army officers.
Bennett did not walk all 54 miles. Instead, he went ahead to Montgomery so he could be there on March 24 to greet King and sing for the marchers alongside Ella Fitzgerald, Pete Seeger, Joan Baez, Sammy Davis Jr., Mahalia Jackson and others. The day after the Stars for Freedom rally, King delivered the"How Long? Not Long" speech on the steps of the Alabama state Capitol.
Bennett committed himself to the cause of racial equality in the decades that followed. He advocated for gifted Black artists and pushed the corporate music industry to release their records. He joined the artistic boycott of apartheid South Africa and performed for Nelson Mandela during the South African president's first state visit to Britain.