Juliette Gréco didn’t get off to a promising start. She was born as a product of rape – a fact which her mother kept reminding her of. As a child, her mother sent her and her sister, Charlotte, to live with their grandparents. Her mother took them back after her grandparents died in 1938. Juliette … Read more
Miram Makeba: Birth & Early Life Miriam Makeba was first sent to prison when she was just 18 months old. It was 1932, the height of the Great Depression. Her mother, Regina Makeba, was a Swazi sangoma (traditional healer). She typically worked as a domestic worker, but she also set up an illegal brewery at … Read more
Frieda Belinfante: Early Life Frieda Belinfante was the first woman to conduct an orchestra in Europe, a Jewish woman who fought in the Dutch resistance, and also – a lesbian who was fired from running the Orange County orchestra in California for living her life as an out lesbian, back when being an LGBTQ person … Read more
