On February 21, 1933, Nina Simone was born in North Carolina.
She was a singer, songwriter, pianist, arranger and activist who used her talent as a weapon in the struggle for African liberation.
At the highest tide of African resistance in the late ‘60s early ‘70s, Simone was one of the voices for oppressed black people.
She supported armed self-defense and self-determination for Africans. Nina once said to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., “I’m not non-violent.”
Simone was clear on what the role of an artist is, “You can’t help it. An artist’s duty, as far as I’m concerned, is to reflect the times.” And that she did with over 40 recorded albums.
With songs like “Four Women” which describes colorism and abuse and “Mississippi Goddam” which was about the black liberation struggle. Mississippi Goddam came in response to the June 12, 1963, murder of Medgar Evers and the September 15, 1963, bombing of a Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama that killed four young black girls.
Nina performed and spoke at civil rights meetings, such as at the Selma to Montgomery marches. Like Malcolm X, she supported black nationalism and advocated violent revolution rather than Martin Luther King’s non-violent approach.Nina suffered from breast cancer for a number of years before she died in her sleep on April 21, 2003 in her home is France. She was 70 years old.
Although no longer with us, Nina Simone’s revolutionary music will live on forever.
