In 1967, Belafonte worked with Rev. Bill Lawson to organize a concert. Along with singer Aretha Franklin and Civil Rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the concert was planned to raise money for the Civil Rights Movement.
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A stench bomb inside an air-conditioning system kept Belafonte away from Houston and the state of Texas.
"Something had been released in the air-conditioning system and gone through the entire building and made it not fit for human gathering," he said. "And that was it. I left and never came to Texas again."
Belafonte was back in town Thursday night to host "A Conversation with Harry Belafonte" at the Wortham Theater Center.