Nina Simone 

She was an American singer, songwriter, pianist, and civil rights activist. Her music spanned styles including classical, folk, gospel, blues, jazz, R&B, and pop.

The sixth of eight children born to a poor family in Tryon, North Carolina, Simone initially aspired to be a concert pianist. With the help of a few supporters in her hometown, she enrolled in the Juilliard School of Music in New York City. She then applied for a scholarship to study at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, where she was denied admission despite a well received audition,^[4] which she attributed to racism. In 2003, just days before her death, the Institute awarded her an honorary degree.

In 1993, Simone settled near Aix-en-Provence in southern France (Bouches-du-Rhône).In the same year, her final album, A Single Woman, was released. During a 1998 performance in Newark, she announced, “If you’re going to come see me again, you’ve got to come to France, because I am not coming back. She suffered from breast cancer for several years before she died in her sleep at her home in Carry-le-Rouet on April 21, 2003.

Her Catholic funeral service at the local parish and her ashes were scattered in several African countries. In 2002, the city of Nijmegen, Netherlands, named a street after her, as “Nina Simone Street”: On August 29, 2005, the city of Nijmegen, the De Vereeniging concert hall honored Simone with the tribute concert Greetings from Nijmegen. Simone was inducted into the North Carolina Music Hall of Fame in 2009 and  the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2018. In 2010, a statue in her honor was erected on Trade Street in her native Tryon, North Carolina.

The French Institute of Political Studies of Lille (Sciences Po Lille), named themselves in her honor.