Smokey Robinson remembers Harry Belafonte as “one of the most brilliant men that I’ve ever met”

“I was very saddened to hear that Harry Belafonte passed,” Robinson told The A.V. Club, saying that they first met when Robinson was in his early 20s and that, in addition to Belafonte being a “wonderful man,” Robinson adds that he was “one of the most brilliant men that I’ve ever met.” Robinson says that Belafonte was brilliant about “most subjects, or anything I’ve ever heard him talk about, or to him, or with him about.”

But the thing about Belafonte that seems to stick with Robinson the most is that he was also a deeply “respected” person, noting that he was “highly political” and “one of the mainstay people for the Civil Rights movement.” Belafonte was a close friend to Martin Luther King Jr., having worked with the Civil Rights leader to pay for Freedom Rides as well as helping to organize the 1963 March On Washington, which is where King made his “I Have A Dream” speech. Speaking with The Root, Robinson also shared that he felt a special connection to Belafonte going back to the very first time they ever met. He said that Belafonte “treated me like I was his son” and that he had “known me forever,” which clearly stuck with Robinson even all these years later.

Overall, though, what Robinson will remember about Harry Belafonte is that he “was just a great person,” succinctly adding, “he’s gonna be missed.”