Who Is Asake Bomani? Meet The Wife of Danny Glover

Picture a woman sitting in a Paris café, notebook open, trying to track down the story of Black artists who left America to find freedom in France. That woman is Asake Bomani. Most people search her name for one reason: she was married to Danny Glover. But her own story is bigger than that.

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Asake Bomani was a jazz singer before she was a writer. She sang in San Francisco clubs. Later, she helped write a book about African American and Caribbean artists in Paris. That book won an American Book Award in 1993. She also helped bring a museum to life in San Francisco.

Yes, she was married to Danny Glover for 25 years. That part is true and worth telling. But it’s one chapter, not the whole book.

In this article, we’ll walk through her early life, her school years, her music, her marriage, her writing, and her museum work. We’ll also correct the many incorrect facts online. There are a lot of them.

One honest note before we start. Some details about Asake Bomani are well documented. Others are guesses that websites keep copying from each other. We’ll tell you which is which.

Quick Facts About Asake Bomani

Full name: Asake Bomani
Born: 1 July 1945 (birthplace unconfirmed — some sites say Wilmington, Delaware)
Age in 2026: 81
Nationality: American
Background: African American
Education: George Washington High School, San Francisco; San Francisco State University (English)
Known for: Author, former jazz singer, Black arts advocate
Book: Paris Connections: African American and Caribbean Artists in Paris
Award: American Book Award, 1993 (Before Columbus Foundation)
TV appearance: Great Railway Journeys, BBC, 1999
Married: Danny Glover, 1975
Divorced: Filed February 1999, finalised 2000
Child: One daughter, Mandisa Glover (born 1 May 1976)
Museum work: Linked to the Museum of the African Diaspora (MoAD), San Francisco
Net worth: Unknown — the $1 million figure online has no real source

Who is Asake Bomani?

Her name is Asake Bomani. It’s usually said “ah-SAH-kay bo-MAH-nee.” The name has African roots, which fits her lifelong interest in Black art and history.

Most sources list her birth date as 1 July 1945. That would make her 81 in 2026. Her birthplace is less clear. Some sites say Wilmington, Delaware. Others just say “United States.” We haven’t found a solid source either way.

She is American and African American. She’s known for three things: writing, singing, and helping build a museum about the African diaspora.

She married Danny Glover in 1975. They divorced in 2000. They have one daughter, Mandisa Glover, born in 1976.

Here’s the important part. Many websites show neat “fact tables” with her height, weight, eye colour, and net worth. Almost none of that is confirmed. We’ll come back to this later, because some of it is plainly wrong.

Asake Bomani’s Early Life and Family

Here’s the truth: we don’t know much about her childhood. And that’s fine. She never asked to be famous.

There are no public records about her parents. No details about brothers or sisters. No stories about her school days as a kid. The websites that claim to know are guessing.

What we do know is that she ended up in San Francisco. She went to high school there. That city shaped her.

She grew up in the 1950s and 1960s. That was a hard and hopeful time for Black Americans. The civil rights movement was building. Jazz was everywhere. Artists were asking big questions about race and freedom.

Why is so little known? Because she wasn’t the famous one. Danny Glover was. Reporters wrote about him and mentioned her in passing. Nobody sat down to write her life story.

So be careful with any article that tells you exactly who her parents were. If a site claims it, ask where they got it.

Asake Bomani’s Education

Asake Bomani went to George Washington High School in San Francisco. That much is repeated across sources and seems solid.

She later attended San Francisco State University. She studied English. That fits everything she did later: she became a writer.

Now, a problem. Some sites say she earned her degree in 1963. That doesn’t add up. She’d have been 18. And she met Danny Glover at San Francisco State in the 1960s, while he was a student there. Glover finished school in 1971. The 1963 date and the meeting story can’t both be right.

So treat that year as unconfirmed. She went to San Francisco State. When exactly she finished is unclear.

San Francisco State in that era was a serious place. In 1968, students there led a long strike. They demanded a Black Studies department. They won. It became the first one in the country.

That campus wasn’t quiet. Students there were arguing about Black identity, art, and history. Asake Bomani was part of that world. You can see it in the work she did later.

Asake Bomani’s Life as a Jazz Singer

The Bay Area music scene in the 1960s and 1970s was alive. Small clubs. Late sets. Musicians who knew each other and showed up for each other. She was in that mix.

Danny Glover has said he was drawn to her voice. He called her his first love. He’s spoken warmly about the woman he married. The singing was part of what pulled him in.

This chapter gets skipped in most articles about her. People jump straight to “Danny Glover’s wife.” But singing came first, and it mattered.

Think about it. If you spend years inside Black music, you start to notice something. Black American artists kept leaving for Europe. Musicians, writers, painters. They found room to breathe there.

That’s not a small connection. Years later, she’d write a whole book about exactly those people.

How She Met Danny Glover

They met at San Francisco State University in the 1960s. Both were students. Neither was famous.

He was a young man from a working family, still figuring out his path. She was studying English and singing. They found each other on a campus that was buzzing with politics and ideas.

They dated for years before marrying. That’s worth noting. This wasn’t a quick romance. They knew each other for a long time first.

Glover has said she was his first love. He’s spoken about how happy he was to marry her. Whatever came later, that early part was real.

They married in 1975. By then, they’d already been through a lot together — including a decision that changed his whole life. We’ll get to that next.

She married Danny Glover

Two creative people. One who wanted to act, one who sang and wrote. That’s not an easy household to run. Somebody has to pay rent while the other chases a dream. They took turns.

Over the years, they showed up together at premieres and festivals. Photos exist from the Sundance Film Festival in Park City and from the Los Angeles premiere of The Royal Tenenbaums. She wasn’t hiding. She just wasn’t the one being photographed.

In February 1999, Danny Glover filed for divorce. The stated reason was irreconcilable differences. That’s the standard legal phrase. It means the marriage ended without either side making public accusations.

The divorce was finalised in 2000.

A note on the sources. Some websites claim she “never admits to being divorced.” That doesn’t match the record. The filing happened. The divorce closed. Where sites contradict each other, the court timeline is the safer bet.

She Supported Danny’s Acting Dream

Before acting, Danny Glover had a real job. He worked as an assessor for the city. Steady paycheck. Benefits. The kind of job you don’t walk away from lightly.

In 1970, he walked away from it. He joined the Black Actors Workshop at the American Conservatory Theatre in San Francisco.

Think about what that meant. No guarantee of work. No promise anyone would hire a Black actor for anything good. Just training and hope.

Asake Bomani helped carry the household through it. She had her own income and her own work. She backed the choice.

He didn’t get his big break for years. Lethal Weapon came in 1987 — seventeen years after he quit that job. Someone had to believe in it that whole time.

Her Book: Paris Connections

The full title is Paris Connections: African American and Caribbean Artists in Paris. It came out in the early 1990s. She worked on it with a co-author.

Get the title right. Many sites list it as Paris Connection: African American Paris. That’s wrong, and it’s a copy-paste error passed between websites. One article we looked at used both versions on the same page.

So what’s the book about? For decades, Black artists left America for Paris. Writers, painters, musicians. In France, they could sit in any café. They could rent any flat. They weren’t followed around shops.

James Baldwin went. Josephine Baker went. Richard Wright went. Many others you’ve never heard of went too.

That last group is the point. The book gathers artists whose names didn’t make the history books. It records who they were and what they made.

Asake Bomani spent her life around Black music and Black art. She noticed the pattern. Then she did the work of writing it down.

Winning the American Book Award

The book won an American Book Award in 1993.

The award comes from the Before Columbus Foundation. It’s not the same as the National Book Award — different prize, different group. It honours American writing from many cultures and backgrounds.

There’s no ranked list of winners. No “best book” title. The foundation picks work it thinks matters and says so. That’s the whole idea.

For Asake Bomani, it meant her book was seen. Not as a niche art project, but as real writing about real history.

It also placed her in a long line. Black American writers have been documenting their own story for generations, often because nobody else would. She joined that line.

Co-Founding the Museum of the African Diaspora

The Museum of the African Diaspora sits in San Francisco. Most people call it MoAD. It opened in 2005.

Asake Bomani is often named among the people who helped bring it into being. She’s been part of the museum’s world for years.

What does MoAD do? It tells the story of African people spread across the globe. Through slavery, through migration, through choice. It shows art, holds talks, and runs programmes for schools.

Why does that matter? Because that story was scattered. A museum gathers it in one place, so a kid can walk in and see it whole.

Look at the shape of her life and it fits. Jazz singer. Author of a book about Black artists abroad. Then a museum about the African diaspora. Same idea, bigger room.

One honest note. This part of her story isn’t well covered by the celebrity websites. If you want the exact record of her role, MoAD itself is the place to check. We’d rather point you there than invent details.

Her Daughter, Mandisa Glover

Mandisa Glover was born on 1 May 1976. She turns 50 in 2026.

The name has African roots too, like her mother’s. That wasn’t an accident. It says something about the home she grew up in.

She’s worked in film. Her credits are behind the camera, not in front of it. She was an additional crew member on You’ve Got Mail and worked in the costume department on The Drummer.

She’s also worked as a chef, sharing food online.

Here’s what stands out. Both her parents were known. She could have used that. Instead she took crew jobs and cooked. She built something small and her own.

She’s stayed close with both parents. Danny Glover has spoken about her over the years with obvious pride.

Where She Is Today

Asake Bomani keeps a quiet life. That’s a choice, not a mystery.

Some sites say she lives in New York. We can’t confirm that. Treat it as a maybe.

She’s stayed connected to the arts world, especially around the museum and Black cultural work in the Bay Area.

She doesn’t do celebrity interviews. She’s not chasing attention. And after the divorce, she didn’t sell her story — which, let’s be honest, she easily could have.

There’s a difference between private and hidden. She’s not hiding. Her book is on shelves. The museum is open. Her work is right there in public. She just doesn’t perform her life for cameras.

Bottom Line

Most articles about Asake Bomani give you a fact table and a famous husband. That’s the lazy version.

The fuller one: a woman who sang jazz in San Francisco. Who studied English at a university where students were fighting for Black Studies. Who backed her husband when he quit a safe job with nothing lined up. Who then wrote a book about Black artists nobody had bothered to write down.

That book won an award in 1993. It’s still on shelves. The museum she helped support is still open in San Francisco.

Danny Glover became famous. Good for him. But Asake Bomani did work that will sit in libraries long after the internet forgets what her eye colour supposedly was.

(FAQs)

Who is Asake Bomani?

She’s an American author, former jazz singer, and a figure in Black arts in San Francisco. She wrote Paris Connections and won an American Book Award in 1993. She was married to Danny Glover.

Is Asake Bomani still married to Danny Glover?

No. He filed for divorce in February 1999 and it was finalised in 2000. They were married for 25 years.

How old is Asake Bomani in 2026?

If her listed birth date of 1 July 1945 is correct, she’s 81.

What book did Asake Bomani write?

Paris Connections: African American and Caribbean Artists in Paris. It’s about Black artists who moved to France. It won an American Book Award in 1993.