´Now we´re about nothing´

At 88, he was desperately planting seeds.

Addressing a packed conference room at the Kellogg Center Thursday afternoon, the actor-singer-activist slammed the American culture of greed and accused colleges and universities of turning their backs on the humanities.

"Once [colleges] gave us the gift of genius, understanding, analysis," he said. "Now the curriculum is totally empty. Much of what (students) talk about is how to prepare themselves for the gift of money."

The humanities, Belafonte said, have paid a "terrible price."

"We do not see the lust among students to answer the big questions," he said. "What is love? What is truth? We assume the good Earth is something we can rape and exploit."

Nobody had to wonder what gets Belafonte up in the morning. He looked, and talked, like a defiant oak in a dying forest.

"We are numb to our deeper humanity," he said. "Why must power suffocate us so easily?"

Decrying a 21st-century vacuum of "courage and leadership," he invoked giants of the 20th century, including his close friend Martin Luther King, Jr., W.E.B. Du Bois and Franklin Roosevelt, as leaders who advanced human rights and economic equality. He cited federal programs such as Social Security and the Works Progress Administration and laws like the Voting Rights Act.

"Somewhere along the line, all that disappeared," he said. "Now we´re just about nothing."

He pointedly left President Barack Obama out of his speech.

Although hundreds of people packed the Big Ten Room in the Kellogg Center, Belafonte didn´t hide his disappointment at the "demographics" of the room. (Most were past their 40s and many were long past.) Clearly, he hoped to sow his seeds on younger soil.

Instead, he admonished the salt-and-pepper-haired crowd as teachers and mentors who are falling asleep at the switch.

When young people succumb to political apathy or forget civil rights history, he said, they are not to blame. "What happened to our young people is us," he said. "We blinked. We let it go. We shifted the values. Now we look at the world and everything is a struggle for power."

However, Belafonte sees a new spark of passion for human rights in the recent protests over police killings of young black men in Ferguson, New York and elsewhere. He had advice for protesters who are pressed by opponents to enumerate "exactly what they want."

"Don´t let them put the trick on you," he said. "Sometimes it´s important to know what you don´t want."

Besides higher education, Belafonte lamented the state of other institutions he feels have eroded in the new century, beginning with "a vital, powerful and productive labor movement" that "had our backs" in the fight against poverty and equality.

He criticized churches, too, for losing their way. "Now we have Christianity fighting Islam and Islam fighting Christianity, destroying life," he said. "When the church becomes so powerful, it becomes more about property than souls."

He left no doubt where his soft spot, and primary hope for the future, lies.

"Artists are the gatekeepers of truth, civilization´s radical voice," he said.

In the 1950s, Belafonte, along with fellow African-American artist-activists like Ossie Davis, Ruby Dee and Sidney Poitier, seized upon the arts as a vehicle for social change. "I could make you cry, make you laugh, or make you sensitive to something you might not have thought about," he said.

To demonstrate, he sang the famous cry, "Day-O," from his signature song, "The Banana Boat Song." His soothing rasp had a cutting edge, like a file sawing through bars. Underneath the song´s infectious joy hides a story of grinding work, exploitation and inequality, just as the song´s" pretty bananas" hide a tarantula.

Success in music and movies, Belafonte said, gave him a platform for delivering more "overt" messages. He recalled introducing King to the audience at his concerts in the 1950s.

"I´m in your bedroom, your bathroom, your kitchen," Belafonte said. "I´m in your face. What do I do with that space?" At last year´s Oscars, Belafonte praised film-makers for rising out of its racist "Birth of a Nation" origins to make socially conscious films like "12 Years a Slave," "Schindler´s List" and "Brokeback Mountain." He praised "Selma" at Thursday´s MSU speech and urged the audience to see it.

But Belafonte added that the arts, too, are far from immune to corruption. He cited the origins of hip hop as a vital form of expression for people in poor urban centers until "gangsters and corporations" took over. "It´s not just rap," he said. "American culture has suffocated under the pressure money can bring."