Maya Angelou, ‘phenomenal woman’ and cultural gem, dies

2nd June 2014   ·   0 Comments

‘We allow our ignorance to prevail upon us and make us think we can survive alone, alone in patches, alone in groups, alone in races, even alone in genders.’

The nation and the world paused last week to mourn the passing of a cultural icon and prolific artist whose literary works and wisdom have inspired countless millions around the globe. Actress, dancer, singer, poet, author and stateswoman Maya Angelou, passed away Wednesday win her Winston-Salem, North Carolina home at the age of 86.

She is perhaps best known for her moving autobiography, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, and the poem she penned celebrating Black womanhood, “Phenomenal Woman.”

Maya Angelou was a woman of many identities — poet foremost among them — but those who knew her well made sure to address her as Dr. Angelou, out of respect for all the honorary degrees she received.

Titles mattered to Angelou, who never graduated from college, as they would to anybody who grew up with nothing, achieved everything and were determined never to give it back, The Associated Press reported.

She rose above poverty, segregation and the trauma of being raped as a young girl to become a testament to the indomitability of the human spirit and the power of the written word. One of her poems, “And Still I Rise,” captures the pride, triumph and courage of descendants of enslaved Africans who continue to rise above the oppression and injustice of the past to reach their goals.

Younger Americans may best remember Angelou as one of the three wise women in the film Poetic Justice and one of the elders in Tyler Perry’s film Madea’s Family Reunion. In a moving speech in that film, Angelou challenges young Blacks to return to their cultural roots.

Tall and regal, with a deep, majestic voice, Angelou could count Malcolm X, James Baldwin and Martin Luther King Jr. among her friends and was one of the first Black women to enjoy mainstream literary success.

The world was watching in 1993 when she read her cautiously hopeful “On the Pulse of Morning” at President Bill Clinton’s first inauguration. Her confident performance openly delighted Clinton and made publishing history by making a poem a best-seller. For Presi­dent George W. Bush, she read another poem, “Amazing Peace,” at the 2005 Christmas tree lighting ceremony at the White House. Presidents honored her in return with a National Medal of Arts and the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the country’s highest civilian honor.

In 2013, she received an honorary National Book Award.

Angelou, who was raised in Stamps, Arkansas, was a mentor to Oprah Winfrey, whom she be­friended when Winfrey was still a local television reporter, and often appeared on her friend’s talk show. She mastered several languages and published not just poetry but advice books, cookbooks and children’s stories. She wrote music, plays and screenplays, received an Emmy nomination for her riveting performance as Kunta Kinte’s very strong grandmother in the award-winning television mini­series “Roots,” and never lost her passion for dance, the art she considered closest to poetry.

“The line of the dancer: If you watch (Mikhail) Baryshnikov and you see that line, that’s what the poet tries for. The poet tries for the line, the balance,” she told The Associated Press in 2008, shortly before her 80th birthday.

Her very name was a reinvention. Angelou was born Marguerite Johnson in St. Louis and raised in Stamps, Arkansas, and San Fran­cisco, moving back and forth between her parents and her grandmother. She was smart and fresh to the point of danger, packed off by her family to California after sassing a white store clerk in Arkansas. Other times, she didn’t speak at all: At the age of seven, she was raped by her mother’s boyfriend and didn’t talk for years. She learned by reading, and listening.

In a statement on Facebook, Angelou’s family said she passed away quietly at home in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, at 08:00 EST (12:00 GMT).

“Her family is extremely grateful that her ascension was not belaboured by a loss of acuity or comprehension,” they said.

“She lived a life as a teacher, activist, artist and human being… The family is extremely appreciative of the time we had with her and we know that she is looking down upon us with love.”

“Over the course of her remarkable life, Maya was many things — an author, poet, civil rights activist, playwright, actress, director, composer, singer and dancer,” President Barack Obama said.

“But above all, she was a storyteller — and her greatest stories were true.”

“The poems and stories she wrote and read to us in her commanding voice were gifts of wisdom and wit, courage and grace,” former President Bill Clinton said.

“I will always be grateful for her electrifying reading of ‘On the Pulse of Morning’ at my first inaugural, and even more for all the years of friendship that followed.”

“”The renaissance woman has made a peaceful transition,” the Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr. said. “She acted, sang, danced and taught She used poetry as a road for peace.”

“I thought she was eternal,” fellow writer and contemporary Toni Morrison told The Telegraph last week. “I thought she would always, always be there.

“She was important in so many ways. She launched African-Ameri­can women writing in the U.S. She was generous to a fault. She had 19 talents and used 10. And she was a real original. There is no duplicate.”

This article originally published in the June 2, 2014 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.