Actor and musician Harry Belafonte, who was recently awarded with an honorary Oscar, has said that artists are the radical voice of civilization.
Belafonte was given the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award for his activism at the Governor's Awards in Los Angeles, the BBC reported.
The 87-year-old actor asserted that he really wished he could be around for the rest of this century, to see what Hollywood does with the rest of the century.
Belafonte was a prominent civil rights campaigner and friend of Martin Luther King Jr, who he helped financially support during his fight against segregation.
Screenwriter Jean-Claude Carriere, actress Maureen O'Hara and Japanese film director and animator Hayao Miyazaki were also awarded with the honorary Oscar.