Miriam Makeba

South Africa mourns




JOHANNNESBURG – Thousands paid their last respects on Saturday to music legend and anti-apartheid activist Miriam Makeba, whose death last weekend plunged South Africa into mourning. The public memorial in a Johannesburg concert hall drew some of South Africa's most prominent politicians, musicians and artists who used song and poetry to hail the woman known fondly as "Mama Africa."

South Africa's apartheid regime revoked Makeba's citizenship in 1960 and even refused to let her return for her mother's funeral. The singer spent more than three decades in exile, living in the United States, Guinea and Europe.