The Auburn Avenue Research Library, in collaboration with the Hammond’s House Museum, will host Mama Africa!: How Miriam Makeba Spread Hope with Her Song, a compelling new exhibition featuring the illustrated children’s literature of award-winning artist/illustrator Charly Palmer.
These vivid paintings pulsing with color, movement, and emotion creating a driving visual narrative that alight on significant events, in the life of Miriam Makeba, such as her flight from her homeland in disguise, her powerful testimony at the United Nations, the horrific Soweto killings, and Nelson Mandela’s release from jail, ending with the singer’s triumphant return home after apartheid is ended.
Miriam Makeba, a Grammy Award-winning South African singer, rose to fame in the hearts of her people at the pinnacle of apartheid―a brutal system of segregation similar to American Jim Crow laws. Mama Africa, as they called her, raised her voice to help combat injustice.
Charly Palmer is a graphic designer, illustrator, and fine artist who studied art and design at the American Academy of Art and the School of the Art Institute, both in Chicago. Mama Africa! is his first picture book.
