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At 17 she began singing at benefits —some nights for Negroes, some nights for whites. Soon she joined a traveling group called The Black Manhattan Brothers (eleven men and Miriam), and for three years she barnstormed all over Rhodesia, the Belgian Congo and South Africa. "The bus often broke down," Miriam remembers, "and after the first five months I was crying all the time. But they kept telling me the show must go on. We always managed to get there on time."
Miriam finally left the group to join a touring musical variety show, then got the female lead in a Negro jazz opera called King Kong (based on a true story of a prizefighter who killed his mistress). In 1958 restless Singer Makeba applied for a passport, and after a year's wait she was on her way to London. From there she moved on to Manhattan's downtown Village Vanguard, then uptown to the Angel. The little girl from Prospect Township is making $750 a week, which could be eight years' rent for a native family in Johannesburg. RCA Victor is planning to record her songs. But Miriam wants to go home.
* Simply a series of native first names, e.g., Jane, Mary, Ellen, etc.