Asake Bomani: Art, Paris Connections, and Danny Glover

Asake Bomani is an American editor, former San Francisco gallery owner, and the first wife of actor and activist Danny Glover. Her own public work reaches well beyond that marriage. She helped lead the Bomani Gallery, co-edited the 1992 exhibition book Paris Connections: African American Artists in Paris, and shared in a 1993 American Book Award for the project. She and Glover also raised their only daughter, Mandisa, during the years when his acting career was beginning to take off.

Her story sits at the meeting point of art, Black cultural history, San Francisco, and one of Hollywood’s most respected careers. The gallery work and Paris Connections are especially important because they show a creative life that existed in its own right, not simply beside a famous husband.

San Francisco Became the Center of Her Public Life

Much of Asake Bomani’s documented story is tied to San Francisco. It was the city where she and Danny Glover met as young adults, where they later built a family, and where her work in the visual arts became part of the local cultural scene.

Glover has said that the two met while they were students at San Francisco State University. In a later interview with The Independent, he remembered being so taken with her that he repeatedly waited outside her English class before finally asking her out.

That story also reveals something about their relationship before Hollywood entered the picture. Glover was still years away from the film roles that would make him famous. He was involved in community work and the political life of San Francisco, while Bomani was part of the same city and university environment that shaped their early adult years.

They married in 1975. Their daughter, Mandisa, was born the following year.

She Encouraged Danny Glover to Take Acting Seriously

One of the most meaningful details in their shared history comes directly from Glover himself. He has credited Asake with encouraging him to pursue acting as a profession.

That support came before his breakthrough movie years. Glover spent much of his twenties working in community development in San Francisco. Acting was not yet the career the public now associates with him.

His path changed as he became more involved in theater and training. By the late 1970s and early 1980s, film work followed. Roles in Places in the Heart, Witness, and Steven Spielberg’s The Color Purple helped establish him as a major screen actor. The Lethal Weapon series then made him known to a much wider audience.

Asake Bomani was there before that rise. Her place in the story is not just that of a spouse during his successful years. Glover’s own recollection places her among the people who helped him see acting as something he could pursue seriously.

Bomani Gallery Gave Her a Place in San Francisco’s Art World

Asake Bomani’s own work became especially visible through the Bomani Gallery in San Francisco.

The San Francisco Public Library’s musicians and performing artists files identify Asake as the owner of Bomani Gallery and list the gallery at 251 Post Street in the city. That location placed it close to San Francisco’s downtown gallery district and Union Square.

The gallery also appears in museum and library records connected to African American art. Rather than functioning only as a small local business, it became part of a larger conversation about Black artists, exhibitions, and cultural history.

That work reached an important point in 1992 with an exhibition devoted to African American artists in Paris.

Paris Connections Brought Black Art History Into Focus

Paris Connections: African American Artists in Paris grew from an exhibition shown in San Francisco at Bomani Gallery and Jernigan Wicker Fine Arts from January 14 through February 29, 1992.

The Smithsonian Libraries and Archives catalogs the book as a 1992 exhibition publication edited by Asake Bomani and Belvie Rooks and curated by artist Raymond Saunders. The volume focused on African American artists and their connection to Paris, with material on expatriate artists and Black art in France.

The subject had deep historical roots. For generations, Black American writers, musicians, and visual artists had looked to Paris as a place where they could work within a different social and cultural setting than the one they faced at home. The exhibition explored that history through the visual arts.

Asake’s role as an editor and gallery owner placed her directly inside that project. She was helping present a history that linked American art, Paris, migration, race, and creative freedom.

The Book Earned an American Book Award

The project received national recognition the next year. Before Columbus Foundation records list Asake Bomani and Belvie Rooks among the 1993 American Book Award recipients for Paris Connections: African American Artists in Paris.

The American Book Awards were created to recognize literary achievement across a wide range of genres and cultural traditions. The 1993 group also included writers and scholars such as Cornel West, Nelson George, Denise Giardina, and Ninotchka Rosca.

For Asake Bomani, the award adds an important dimension to her public record. Her best-known professional credit was not a celebrity project or a memoir about life with an actor. It was an art book tied to an exhibition on African American artists and international cultural history.

The award gave her art work a national milestone of its own. It connected a San Francisco gallery project with a wider history of African American artists who had lived, worked, and exhibited in Paris.

Family Life Grew Alongside Two Creative Careers

As Glover’s acting career expanded, Asake Bomani and her husband were also raising Mandisa in San Francisco.

People has reported that Mandisa is their only child and that she grew up in the city. She later built a life that included food, creative work, and time behind the scenes in entertainment rather than following her father into acting.

Mandisa’s story also connects back to the cultural environment created by both parents. She studied in the Bay Area and has spoken publicly through her own work and family life rather than trying to build a celebrity identity around the Glover name.

Family photographs from the period show Asake, Danny, and Mandisa together at public events, including film premieres. Yet the family also maintained deep San Francisco roots while Glover’s movie career became increasingly international.

Her Marriage Spanned Danny Glover’s Rise to Fame

The couple’s marriage covered some of the most important decades of Glover’s professional life.

They married in 1975, before his major film career had begun. By the mid-1980s, he was appearing in acclaimed films and taking on roles that brought him national recognition. In 1987, the first Lethal Weapon paired him with Mel Gibson and started a franchise that continued through four films.

During the same period, Glover became increasingly known for political and humanitarian work. His activism drew on experiences that went back to his student years and community work in San Francisco.

Asake Bomani’s own work in art and publishing developed during that wider period. The 1992 Paris Connections exhibition arrived when Glover was already a major film star, yet the project was rooted in a separate cultural space with its own artists, galleries, scholars, and audience.

Their marriage ended in 2000 after roughly 25 years.

Mandisa Kept Strong Ties to Both Parents

Mandisa remained an important link between the two after the divorce. Over the years, she has appeared with her father at public events and has also spoken warmly about her family.

In 2026, she took on an especially visible role after Glover publicly discussed his Alzheimer’s diagnosis. People reported that Mandisa had first noticed changes in his memory in 2022 and later became closely involved in his care.

That chapter belongs mainly to Glover and his daughter, but it also shows the lasting family line created during his marriage to Asake. Mandisa is their only child and has remained central to his personal life through adulthood.

Bomani Gallery and Paris Connections Remain Her Creative Legacy

By the early 1990s, Bomani Gallery and Paris Connections had established a clear creative chapter alongside the family’s better-known Hollywood story.

Bomani Gallery placed her within San Francisco’s arts community. Paris Connections connected that gallery work to a wider history of African American artists abroad. The American Book Award then gave the project national literary recognition.

Those pieces fit together naturally. They show someone involved in presenting, editing, and preserving Black cultural history through art rather than someone whose public identity began and ended with marriage.

Her work also reflects the cultural life of San Francisco during a period when artists, activists, educators, and community organizations often overlapped. The same city shaped Glover’s activism and acting path while giving Asake a base for gallery and publishing work.

Why Asake Bomani’s Story Still Draws Interest

Interest in Asake Bomani comes from more than one direction. Movie fans recognize her name because of Danny Glover. Readers interested in Black art history may find her through Paris Connections. Others encounter her through Mandisa and the Glover family story.

The different parts make more sense when they are viewed together. She met Glover before fame, encouraged his early acting ambitions, built a family with him, and developed her own work around art and publishing.

That combination gives her a much richer place in the public record than a simple celebrity-spouse label suggests.

A Creative Life Connected to Art, Family, and San Francisco

Asake Bomani’s public story is closely tied to San Francisco, but its reach went further. Her gallery helped present African American art. Her editorial work on Paris Connections explored the history of Black artists in Paris. The book earned American Book Award recognition in 1993.

At home, she and Danny Glover raised Mandisa while his career moved from community theater and early screen roles to international fame. Glover later remembered her as the person who pushed him to take acting seriously, giving her an important place in the beginning of that journey as well.

Seen together, those details make Asake Bomani more than a footnote in someone else’s biography. Her gallery, editorial work, family, and role in San Francisco’s creative community form a story with its own shape and value.

For another story about the family culture behind creative careers, read our feature on Janet Smollett next on LakewoodScoop.co.uk.