Quotes

“First, I must say that you are a great actress. Your portrayal of the various characters was fantastic. Your play and performance touched me. My emotions were stirred up. I experienced sadness, anger and rage. Your play provoked many questions and reflections on the struggles, resistance and resiliency of blacks throughout history not only the suffering and triumphs of our past but the current injustices that must be challenged and changed. I also experienced joy and pride during your performance. I was proud that the black people of Montgomery, Alabama found the courage to come together and stand up at last—with success they held the 381 days bus boycott. I was also proud that these ordinary people, women, men and children challenged the unjust laws and fought for their full citizenship and their humanity. Thank you for bringing this rich history and fantastic performance to Suriname." - Liesbeth Venetiaan–Vanenburg, First Lady of the Republic of Suriname, South America
“Awele Makeba’s work inspires new questions about how to teach and learn history. Her presentation cannot help but provoke an emotional response that engages all facets of our common humanity and makes us question how much we really understand the past. This is her success: she unsettles our understanding of what we thought we knew so that we can come to know in new ways.” - Sam Wineburg, Professor, Cognitive Studies in Education, Stanford University and Author, Historical Thinking and Other Unnatural Acts: Charting the Future of Teaching the Past, Temple University Press c. 2001
"Awele creates bridges that reconnect audiences to their national soul. She entertains and ignites in the way of a young Maya Angelou; she reveals the connection of crisis and renewal as does Ntozake Shange; she uncovers the personal within the historic like Anna Deavere Smith. But Awele is like no other in her ability to awaken her audiences in three areas - race, history and art. Laughing and clapping or stunned into silence, we are aware of barriers and fears, preconceptions and inhibitions, magically falling away. We leave her feeling fired up, newly equipped, emboldened and sensitized at once.” - Pat Holt, Former Book Review Editor, San Francisco Chronicle and Editor, Holtuncensored.com
"Awele Makeba's stirring performance of I'm Not Getting Up Until Jim Crow Gets Off is theatre at its best. The play weaves together the voices of four women, Claudette Colvin, Mary Louise Smith, JoAnn Robinson, and Rosa Parks and documents their acts in defying the Jim Crow laws during the Montgomery (Alabama) Bus Boycotts in 1955. Their roles as "upstanders" are important lessons - ones that continue to challenge us today - about participation as a responsible citizen in a democracy and about lessons of courage and faith. In bringing this untaught history to the stage and, indeed, to life, Makeba also reminds us that empathy and the capacity to understand and to own history helps us realize the best in ourselves." - Margot S. Strom, Executive Director, Facing History and Ourselves
"Rage! is a dynamic, innovative and interactive performance that unveils critical ideals, issues, events and people - youth and women, central to the historical "truth" of the Montgomery Bus Boycott, a watershed moment in The Movement and American history that should be experienced by all!" - Bob Moses, Founder, The Algebra Project and Co-Author, Radical Equations: Civil Rights from Mississippi to the Algebra Project, Beacon Press c. 2001
"Awele Makeba's extensive oral history interviews with Claudette Colvin and her research on other women and teen participants of the Montgomery Bus Boycott represent an important addition to the scholarly research on the modern Civil Rights struggle. Just as importantly, her riveting performance based on those sources brings to life important dimensions of the Boycott in a way that is at once accessible, entertaining, and thought provoking for a variety of audiences, from student to specialist. The students, faculty, administrators, and community people attending her performance at Western Michigan University were both intellectually engaged and deeply moved by the experience. Awele is the real deal." - Mitch Kachun, Western Michigan University and Author, Festivals of Freedom: Memory and Meaning in African American Emancipation Celebrations, 1808-1915 Amherst, University of Massachusetts Press c. 2003