Harry Belafonte, the "King of Calypso" who became one of America's endearing and enduring civil-rights activists into his 10th decade, has died. He was 96. Belafonte died Tuesday at his home in New York of congestive heart failure, his spokesperson Ken Sunshine confirmed. Belafonte will be remembered as one of the most popular entertainers of the 20th century, as a singer, musician and actor. But his civil-rights work in the 1960s and his anti-apartheid work in the 1980s will be just as poignant. "I wasn't an artist who became an activist. I was an activist who became an artist," Belafonte wrote in his 2011 memoir. "Ever since my mother had drummed it into me, I'd felt the need to fight injustice wherever I saw it, in whatever way I could." 📸: STRINGER/AFP/Getty Images