Why didn't Belefonte go to the Funeral?

Harry Belefonte was invited by the King family to give the eulogy at Coretta Scott King's funeral. The King family dis-invited him after President Bush announced he would attend. Recently he gave his account as to why to Democracy Now. His main reason was because of his recent comments regarding Bush, Belafonte had made international headlines when he spoke out against Bush during a trip to Venezuela to meet with President Hugo Chavez. I looked up exactly what he said to check it out on my own:

No matter what the greatest tyrant in the world, the greatest terrorist in the world, George W. Bush, says, we're here to tell you: Not hundreds, not thousands, but millions of the American people – millions – support your revolution, support your ideas, and yes, expressing our solidarity with you.

Jeez Harry, can you really say that?? I guess if you're an established activist you say what you feel... perhaps that's the definition.

Still it struck me as strange that he was invited, then when Bush announced he'd attend, the family recinded the invite. I did some more digging to decide whether or not it was a big deal. Should Harry be there? Does his track record and relationship to the King's warrant attendance?

Is he Relevant?

• His album Calypso was the first album ever to sell over a million copies.
• He received the National Medal of the Arts in 1994 and the Grammy Award for Lifetime Achievement in 2000.

Is he really an activist or is he just trying to grab headlines?

• He was once denied an apartment in New York City, he was born in Harlem, because he was African American. So he bought the whole building.
• In 1987, he became the goodwill ambassador for UNICEF, the United Nations Children’s Fund.
• In 1988, the Peace Corps gave him its Leader for Peace Award.
• He has established the Belafonte Foundation of Music and Art, which helps African American young people study for careers in the arts.
• He recently produced a five-CD set The Long Road to Freedom: An Anthology of Black Music. It features African American music and music from Africa dating as early as the 1600s.

How did he get connected to King?
His words....
"When Dr. King came on one of his very first trips to New York, he was in Harlem, and a deranged black woman stabbed him, and he was -- the blade was just millimeters away from his heart, and to remove the instrument, his life was in jeopardy, and it was a very delicate operation. And it was then that I understood that -- after seeing Dr. King and talking to him, his first concern was what would happen to his family. And I said to myself, our leader cannot be concerned about that. That burden should not be on his shoulders. There are other aspects of the burden that would be his in relation to it, but not that. So that it was demanded and responded to that forever the welfare of his family would never be in jeopardy with him being at the helm of the movement, and we brought resources, and it was my task to direct all that, watching the kids grow, put money aside for their studies, to take care of Coretta, to make sure she had every convenience at her disposal to go, come while her husband was incarcerated.

Was he close to the family? To Coretta?
I'd say yea, again his words....
"...when Dr. King was murdered, I was in Atlanta in their home, and we separated ourselves from others who were there in the living room, and she (Coretta) said, “Would you come with me.” We went into the bedroom, and she said, “Help me select the clothes that I must -- we must dress him in.” And it was a very private and a very remarkable thing to – the intimacy of it with her. And as we were selecting the suits and the shirt and the tie and laying it out, she sat on the bed, and she kind of – a place where she had slept so often with her husband, and all those memories. And I said, “What is it?” She says, “You know, I'm worried about where this is all going. I'm worried about the nation, the rage, the anger, and I need to know what to do.” And we talked for a second. Then I said to her, “You know, at this very moment in Memphis, thousands of sanitation workers are on hold, because Dr. King was supposed to have been there tomorrow to lead that movement and to speak to the people, and before your husband, our leader, is put in his grave, if you have the will and the capacity to go down there tomorrow and stand up before those workers and let the world know that the movement has not been interrupted, that the process continues, and that all of us, as strong or as weak as we may be, will step into the breach and do what must be done.” And she did, and she went down, and she spoke, and we came right back ...she was in her own right very involved ... she was very, very committed to the peace movement, and as a matter of fact, in Europe...we put on a peace concert for 250,000 Germans in Cologne, mostly students... I called and asked her to come to speak. It would mean a lot to the young people there. She came, and I have never, ever heard a declaration of approval like those young German youth did when she came, and she had a sense of her own power. She had a sense of her own capacity to bring influence and to be revered for the work she did."

I saw some of the funeral on TV. I'm sorry he wasn't there, I think he should've been. He was a friend and deeply committed to the struggle. I continue to be concerned about how the current administration seems to squash dissent, yea I know they didn't dis-invite him, the family did, but jeez I have to think the 'administration' had a say. Are they acting out Capt. Ramsey's (Gene Hackman) sentiments to Lt. Commander Hunter (Denzel Washington) in Crimson Tide, "...we're here to preserve democracy, not practice it."