"Heaped with the ability and response-ability to sing despite and because of the enormity of it all, she railed at the affront," wrote Adams. "Kin to the millions forced into silence and solitude, Nina had been gifted with two obedient, inventive hands, a voice and a stage. With these she rallied tales of the many, 'Four Women' in particular:" My skin is black
My arms are long
My hair is woolly
My back is strong
Strong enough to take the pain
Inflicted again and again ...

My skin is yellow ...
My skin is tan ...
My skin is brown ...

"Nina Simone was perhaps the first African-American goddess of music," Keith Murphy, host and producer of Urban Journal, the XM Satellite radio show, and president of Milwaukee based Conceptz Communications, told BlackAmericaWeb.com. "She had an air of sensuality," Murphy said, "the perfect blend of sensuality, style and African roots. She was in a class of her own."

Simone, according to published reports, performed her first piano recital at her hometown library in Tryon, North Carolina in 1943 when she as 10 years old. That day, in addition to getting her first taste of applause and audience approval, a young Simone also had her first encounter with both racism and resistance: Her parents were removed from the first row of her recital to accommodate white people - and she refused to play a note until they were moved back. This incident is said to have been the catalyst for her commitment to the fight for equality and civil rights for blacks.

"Coming of musical age in the late 1950s, Nina outpaced eccentric. You had to be a little crazy to sing the songs she chose," Adams wrote in Black Issues. "And hers became the musical voice of the Civil Rights Movement. Who else would write, 'To Be Young, Gifted, and Black' and elevate it as anthem? Who else would liberate us with her rollicking rendition of Billy Taylor's 'I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free?' Who, but a 'crazy woman' would dare pen and perform 'Mississippi Goddam' just when we needed it most?" Alabama's got me so upset
Tennessee made me lose my rest
And everybody knows about Mississippi
Goddamn! "This," Adams wrote, "when sheriffs and their deputies regularly clubbed demonstrators desegregating lunch counters, hosed prayerful children, set dogs upon grandmothers, and prided themselves at hauling a Nobel Peace Prize laureate to jail by the scruff of his neck."

Indeed, Simone wrote the fiery, furious "Mississippi Goddam" after the racially-motivated bombing in 1963 of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, where four young black girls were killed. It is among her most famous works, revered for both its musicianship and captivating lyrics.

Years later, still stung by America's racism, Simone bolted the country in 1969 and traveled the world. At various times, she lived in Liberia, Barbados, Switzerland, France, Trinidad, the Netherlands, Belgium and England.

In 1978, Simone was arrested, and soon released, for withholding taxes in 1971-73 in protest at her government's undeclared war in Vietnam. In 1982, the LP "Fodder on My Wings" was recorded for a Swiss label. In 1985, she recorded "Nina's Back" and "Live and Kickin" in the U.S. Simone always had strong words about America - and racism. "The worst thing about that kind of prejudice ... is that while you feel hurt and angry and all the rest of it, it feeds you self-doubt. You start thinking, 'Perhaps I am not good enough,'" Simone once said. "Slavery has never been abolished from America's way of thinking."

An accomplished scuba diver, Simone once talked about her passion for the ocean.

"I try to swim every damn day I can," she told a writer, "and I've learned to scuba dive and snorkel. I would like a man now who is rich, and who can give me a boat -- a sailboat. I want to own it and let him pay for it. My first love is the sea and water, not music. Music is second." Simone died after a long illness at her home in the south of France on April 21, 2003. Her ashes - as she requested - were spread across several African countries.