"Harry Belafonte was a trailblazer in music history and a titan in the civil rights movement. In his art and his activism, he was unapologetic and undaunted by the barriers before him, which he went on to break. I mourn this enormous loss together with the entire city and all who were impacted by his songs and his story.
"As a fellow Black New Yorker of Caribbean heritage, I was honored to meet Mr. Belafonte and learn from his experience and example. His political and civic engagement, his righteous anger in the face of injustice, continued throughout his long life. His legacy continues not only in his songs that have survived generations but in the change he helped to create for generations to come. May we all aspire to follow in the steps of Harry Belafonte, and his lifelong, selfless, and concrete support of civil rights."