The Guardian – by Jessica Glenza
Maya Angelou, the American poet and author, died at her home in Winston-Salem, North Carolina on Wednesday. She was 86.
Her son, Guy B Johnson, confirmed the news in a statement. He said: “Her family is extremely grateful that her ascension was not belabored by a loss of acuity or comprehension.
“She lived a life as a teacher, activist, artist and human being. She was a warrior for equality, tolerance and peace. The family is appreciative of the time we had with her and we know that she is looking down upon us with love.”
Johnson said Angelou “passed quietly in her home” sometime before 8am on Wednesday.
Bill Clinton, at whose inauguration Angelou read her On the Pulse of the Morning, said in a statement: America has lost a national treasure, and Hillary and I a beloved friend.”
Angelou’s failing health was reported as recently as Tuesday, when she canceled an appearance honoring her with a Beacon of Life Award because of “health reasons”. The ceremony was part of the 2014 MLB Beacon Award Luncheon, in Houston, Texas, part of Major League Baseball’s Civil Rights Games.
Last month, forced to cancel an appearance at a library in Arkansas, she wrote: “An unexpected ailment put me into the hospital. I will be getting better and the time will come when I can receive another invitation from my state and you will recognize me for I shall be the tall Black lady smiling. I ask you to please keep me in your thoughts, in your conversation and in your prayers.”
Angelou was born Marguerite Annie Johnson, in St Louis, Missouri, in 1928. She described in an NPR interview how her brother’s lisp turned Marguerite into Maya.
She survived several personal trials: she was a child of the depression, grew up in the segregated south, survived a childhood rape, gave birth as a teenager, and was, at one time, a prostitute.
She wrote wrote seven autobiographies, including the 1969 memoir I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, and was a playwright, director, actor, singer, songwriter and novelist.
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings was an indictment of the racial discrimination she experienced during her childhood. “If growing up is painful for the southern black girl,” she wrote, “being aware of her displacement is the rust on the razor that threatens the throat. It is an unnecessary insult.”
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings has had a wide appeal, particularly to younger female readers and continues to appear on school and university reading lists in the US and the UK.
In 1993, she read On the Pulse of the Morning at President Clinton’s first inauguration, a performance that made the poem a bestseller. The poem celebrates the diversity of ethnic groups in the US, and calls on the nation to leave behind cynicism and look forward to a new pride in itself, and a new dawn for the country.
Clinton on Wednesday said he would “always be grateful for her electrifying reading … and even more for all the years of friendship that followed.”
Angelou was a long-time Clinton supporter. One month before his inauguration, she told the New York Times: “Since the election, I have found it easier to wake up in the morning,” and “there seems to be a promise in the air.”
And her loyalty to Hillary Clinton has been steadfast, even as Barack Obama campaigned to be America’s first black president.
“I made up my mind 15 years ago that if she ever ran for office I’d be on her wagon. My only difficulty with Senator Obama is that I believe in going out with who I went in with,” she told the Guardian.
Actors, writers, directors, activists and politicians tweeted thankful and mournful notes in response to Angelou’s death.
JK Rowling called her “utterly amazing”; Lena Dunham thanked Angelou for “your power, your politics, your poetry. We need you more than ever.”
Listen to yourself and in that quietude you might hear the voice of God.
— Maya Angelou (@DrMayaAngelou) May 23, 2014
Angelou had lived in North Carolina since the early 1980s, when she became a professor at Wake Forest University, a private liberal arts college. A statement from Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem called Angelou “a national treasure whose life and teachings inspired millions around the world”.
The mayor of Winston-Salem, Allen Joines, said the town would probably remember Angelou best for her commitment to health and theatre.
She supported the founder of the National Black Theater Festival in Winston-Salem, and eventually became its first chairperson in 1989. In 2012, the Maya Angelou Women’s Health and Wellness Center opened in the city. A street in Winston-Salem is named after Angelou.
Despite her many accomplishments, the mayor said small moments seemed to touch the poet.
In April 2008, the town threw Angelou an 80th birthday party. Despite entertainers and speakers present at the party, the mayor said, “The thing that seemed to touch her the most was a group of little kids.”
Lyn Innes contributed reporting.
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/may/28/maya-angelou-poet-author-dies-86
am truely sadden by this …………then, again, who can live forever….Here was a life, what little I know of it, that triumphed above the common factor, of her time, even to the point of prostitution, I assume that was for money, and not likeness.
Here is the life of, in this person, a woman, a black, a lady of little formal education but with the title of Dr….before her name…..her productive creativities spanned more than 50 years……….
What I would like to ask her but now can not is this. Why upon learning of your incorrect support of Bill Clinton, did you not change that statement to up date it?
I suspect she thought, let sleeping dogs lie…..I don’t much agree with that thought……cause it lasted so long into the future reaches of her life…
Makes a person wonder, just who and what statements they make are truthful from their own mouths…………
She is a mountain to climb for all those whose life’s work, they desire to contribute upon…………I believe she understood love, how imperfect it is!…and occasionally, how perfect it also is..Perhaps. At the end of any of our lives, that is the best that can be said of or expected of any of us….
Rbeason, I always loved what was on Fanny Crosby’s stone…
“She did what she could.” Fanny Crosby went blind as a young
girl, but lived to write some of the most beautiful hymns of the faith that were ever written.
As for me, I just want to hear the Lord say to me, “Welcome home, my child, welcome home!”
you know what
1611 believer………
I am uplifted by this comment of yours….
and will………………will do something within myself…of that resolute……….
I am brand new to as you have just now told me, of Fanny Crosby…………
I will ck ……………it!
tks for this comment………..
I want to add a bit….My thoughts are, one need not be concerned……..caus……………..that up above is beyond all understanding……….
and you know what? Joy is supposed to be while living a life…………And lets, I tell myself,………..get a better handle on that………….then when I do, that,I’;ll have a better handle on the after……………..Make sense to you?
Actually, my friend, Heaven is not above understanding if you study the Scriptures.
Why don’t you research Fanny Crosby and just read the lyrics to the beautiful songs she wrote about Jesus Christ.
He is the Way, the Truth and The Life!!!!!
this is of my own experience…my choice at age 18 was to attend Concordia College Moorehead Mn……….which I did and paid for from day one………then on to finally graduating from a University in Montana…Christ said this.;….after john the baptist, meaning his life, being born, the Law and the Profits….of the old testiment were no more and now it was the The Kingdom Of God………..and in the gospels, he exponds on that in meaning…………..so that’s where i am on the Bible……………and what is it do you think I might be missing?