Distinguished Alumni Award: Gina Belafonte ’83
Gina Belafonte is an award-winning producer, director, actress, educator, prison abolitionist, and freedom activist.
Social justice leader, change maker, and artivist Gina Belafonte ’83 (Acting) has spent her life at the intersection of arts and activism. As co-founder and executive director of Sankofa, she embodies her father Harry Belafonte’s work to educate, motivate, and activate artists and allies in service of grassroots movements and equitable change.
Belafonte and Sankofa enlist the support of today’s most celebrated artists and influential individuals, in collaboration with grassroots partners, to elevate the voices of the disenfranchised and promote peace, justice, and quality, as well as cultural and civic engagement.
She is also the lead producer of the award-winning and internationally acclaimed documentary Sing Your Song, among countless other projects.
Most recently, Belafonte expanded her work for equity rights by launching a virtual reality mental health program, expanding access to this vital care using cutting edge VR/AR technology. She is a visionary, drawing on a powerful legacy and building community to focus on the most pressing issues of our time.
Belafonte and her work have been profiled in Elle, AfroTech, Essence, for Newsy, and more.
Her arts and activism initiatives include directing the award-winning hip-hop spoken word musical Lyrics From Lockdown, which addresses mistaken identity, mass incarceration, and police brutality, and producing the Many Rivers to Cross Social Justice Arts and Music Festival, uniting 40 artists and 50 social justice organizations to center voting rights, mass incarceration, and poverty. Her collaborations include For Freedoms on the 50 State Initiative and the reimagining of Norman Rockwell’s Four Freedoms, INTO ACT!ON, and many more.