Zenzile Miriam Makeba, often known as Mama Africa, was a South African singer, songwriter, actress, and civil rights activist who lived from 4 March 1932 to 9 November 2008.
She was an opponent of apartheid and the white minority government in South Africa and was associated with musical genres such as Afropop, jazz, and world music.
Makeba, who was born in Johannesburg to Xhosa and Swazi parents, had to work as a youngster after her father passed away.
She gave birth to her sole child in 1950, went through a brief and apparently brutal first marriage at the age of 17, and beat breast cancer.
Her singing ability had been noticed since she was a young child, and in the 1950s, she started singing professionally with the Cuban Brothers, the Manhattan Brothers, and an all-female group.
Who is Miriam Makeba’s husband Stokely Carmichael?
Stokely Standiford Churchill Carmichael, better known by his stage name Kwame Ture, was a pivotal player in both the global pan-African movement and the US civil rights movement. He passed away on November 15, 1998.
He was born in Trinidad and, at the age of 11, immigrated to the US. He began working as an activist while still a student at the Bronx High School of Science.
As the “Honorary Prime Minister” of the Black Panther Party (BPP), the “Honorary Prime Minister” of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), and finally as the leader of the All-African People’s Revolutionary Party, he made a significant contribution to the development of the Black Power movement (A-APRP).
