Legendary South African performer Miriam “Mama Afrika” Makeba died on Nov. 10.
Makeba, 76, collapsed the day before in Italy as she left the stage at a concert. The event was organized to protest racism and organized crime, believed to be responsible for the September massacre of six immigrants from Ghana.
A symbol of the struggle against the apartheid system, Makeba was banned from her home in South Africa by the racist regime for more than three decades. Throughout her career, the former domestic worker performed with musical legends Nina Simone, Dizzy Gillespie, Harry Belafonte and Paul Simon, and promoted the South African people’s struggle internationally through her music.
An editorial in the Sowetan Star described Makeba as “a beacon of light for the downtrodden back home in South Africa,” whose “music instilled hope.”
Though exiled from her home for so long, Mama Afrika never stopped fighting as “an ambassador for the struggle on the continent for emancipation from colonialism.”
