Stumbling Toward Enlightenment
Gatherings from the Internet
Mercedes Sosa was an Argentine singer who was popular throughout Latin America and many countries outside the region. With her roots in Argentine folk music, Sosa became one of the preeminent exponents of nueva canción. She gave voice to songs written by many Latin American songwriters. Her music made people hail her as the “voice of the voiceless ones”, and “the voice of America”.
Käthe Kollwitz was born July 8, 1867, in Konigsberg, East Prussia (now Kaliningrad, Russia). She devoted herself primarily to graphic art after 1890. Her first important works were two separate series of prints, Weavers’ Revolt, and Peasants’ War. The death of her youngest in 1914 led to another cycle of prints of a mother protecting her children. Her last great series of lithographs was Death.
Joy Adamson was a naturalist, artist and author. Her book, Born Free, describes her experiences raising a lion cub named Elsa. Born Free was printed in several languages, and made into an Academy Award-winning movie of the same name. In 1977, she was awarded the Austrian Cross of Honour for Science and Art.
Michelle LaVaughn Robinson Obama is an American lawyer and writer. She is married to the 44th President of the United States, Barack Obama, and is the first African-American First Lady of the United States. Raised on the South Side of Chicago, she is a graduate of Princeton University and Harvard Law School, and spent the early part of her legal career working at the law firm Sidley Austin, where she met Barack. Subsequently, she worked as part of the staff of Chicago mayor Richard M. Daley, and for the University of Chicago Medical Center.