November 13, 2008
South African President Kgalema Motlanthe on Wednesday declared a period of national mourning for music legend and anti-apartheid activist Miriam Makeba.
All national flags will be lowered to half-staff beginning on Thursday, until her funeral and cremation, which has yet to be scheduled, his office said in a statement.
"Her spirit will continue to live on in everyone's hearts, and the world would continue to celebrate and honour her for her significant contribution in making South Africa and the world a better place for all who live in it," he said.
The government will also open books of condolences for the public in the capital Pretoria as well as in Cape Town, the statement said.
Makeba made her final journey home on Wednesday, as her body was flown to Johannesburg from Italy, where she died after collapsing as she left the stage of a benefit concert on Sunday. She was 76.
Family and friends escorted her coffin to Soweto as they prepare her services.
Born in Johannesburg on March 4, 1932, Makeba was one of Africa's best known singers, famed for hits such as Pata Pata and The Click Song but also for speaking out about the abuses of apartheid.
South Africa's white 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.
Makeba won a Grammy award for Best Folk Recording with US singer Harry Belafonte in 1965. But her music was outlawed in her homeland after she appeared in an anti-apartheid film.
"I kept my culture. I kept the music of my roots," she said in her biography. "Through my music I became this voice and image of Africa, and the people, without even realising."
While she was still in enforced exile, she performed with Paul Simon in the US singer's 1987 Graceland concert in Zimbabwe, neighbouring South Africa.
She finally returned to her homeland in the 1990s after Nelson Mandela was released from prison, as the apartheid system they had both fought for so long began to be dismantled.
But it took her six years to find someone in the South African recording industry to produce a record with her. She entitled it Homeland.
  
 
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