Kid from Astoria, Queens made it.
Eight decades of humble royalty.
R.I.P.
Never heard the story below before. It illustrates what an incredible human being Bennett showed himself to be. Wish I had half his courage, especially in that era.
"It was on Thanksgiving in 1945 that Bennett was famously demoted.
His transgression? Inviting a Black friend, Frank Smith, to dine with him at a time when soldiers were still officially segregated. Bennett said a bigoted officer, determined to pull rank on him, cut off Bennett’s corporal stripes with a razor and then spat on them before flinging them to the floor. He was promptly demoted to private, and reassigned to a unit that exhumed mass graves and prepared the bodies of soldiers for shipment back to home.
“This was another unbelievable example of the degree of prejudice that was so widespread in the army during World War II,” Bennett said. “Black Americans have fought in all of America’s wars, yet they have seldom been given credit for their contribution, and segregation and discrimination in civilian life and in the armed forces has been a sad fact of life.”
“It was actually more acceptable to fraternize with the German troops than it was to be friendly with a fellow Black American soldier,” he recalled.
Experiences like this led Bennett to later join Dr. Martin Luther King during the 1965 civil rights march in Alabama. And throughout his long career, Bennett treated his fellow musicians — no matter the color of their skin — with respect and dignity. This included acts such as giving top billing to Black artists like
Duke Ellington and Count Basie out of respect."
The horrors that Tony Bennett witnessed on the battlefield led him towards a life of pacifism, art, music and social justice.
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