There are some people in this world that are so influential, so strong, and so admirable that we really can’t imagine having to go on without them. Revolutionary author and activist Maya Angelou was one of those people. Unfortunately, we’re now faced with the reality of having to move forward without her.
Angelou’s literary agent confirmed the author’s death in her own home in North Carolina on May 28, at the age of 86. Looking back at those years, one can easily see the undeniable impact she had on this world.
Dr. Angelou is primarily known in most high school classrooms as a poet and novelist, but she was so much more. She was an educator, a filmmaker, an actress, a producer, a historian, a civil rights activist, and, beyond that, a woman full of wisdom with the ability to impart it on anyone willing to listen. And we were.
Born in Mississippi in the late 20s, Angelou was met with racial discrimination throughout her life, but she refused to hide her culture. Instead, she celebrated it, establishing herself as the unshakable woman that she was. As a teenager, she was presented with the opportunity to attend San Francisco’s Labor School, but she dropped out to become the city’s first African-American female cable car conductor. She later completed high school and soon after gave birth to her son, having to work as a waitress and cook to support the two of them. Her passion for the arts, though, would not stay at bay for much longer.
In the mid-50s, Angelou toured Europe with the production Porgy and Bess. She subsequently studied dance, appeared on television shows dancing, and later recorded her first album, Calypso Lady. Soon after, she moved to New York, joined a writer’s guild, and acted off-Broadway.
In the 60s, Dr. Angelou began to travel to places such as Egypt and Ghana, where she wrote and taught at the University of Ghana’s School of Music and Drama. She also had the opportunity to learn several languages during this time. It was in Ghana where she met Malcolm X, and she later returned to the United States to help him raise his new Organization of African American Unity. She, in turn, came to work with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. as well.
After the assassination of both of these great men, Angelou was devastated. However, under the encouragement of her friend, novelist James Baldwin, she came to write her iconic book: I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. She now holds over 30 best-selling titles.
In more recent years, Angelou appeared on television as well as on film, including Alex Haley’s Roots, and she directed her own first feature film, Down in the Delta.
She was certainly recognized for her abilities, awarded 3 Grammys, the Lincoln Medal, the Presidential Medal of Arts, and over 50 honorary doctorates.
There aren’t enough words to fully account and appreciate the impact she had on the innumerable amount of people that she has inspired. Though, if there were, she might have been the only one able to so perfectly string them together.
She has served as an inspiration to us all throughout her life, and she will not easily be forgotten. Although we no longer have her, we can still hold on to her words.
“A bird doesn’t sing because it has the answers, it sings because it has a song.”
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