MORE on the life and death of the glorious woman who was Maya Angelou. We have lost a great voice for faith, compassion, reconciliation, forgiveness, harmony, love, peace, social justice, laughter and life. Her words and her living what she wrote and preached, her example, will live with us forever. I remember hearing her read her poem at Pres Bill Clinton's first inauguration (I was there).
Date: January 20, 1993
Location: US Capitol. Washington, DC
I feel a loss with her death yesterday, 28 MAY 14. She was a blessing, and she is missed already. Godspeed Maya Angelou, and thank you. From +PBS NewsHour .....
http://youtu.be/XGWx9W0-K7c
So, what made Maya Angelou such a unique voice? What stood out for you?
ELIZABETH ALEXANDER, University: What I think was extraordinary about Maya Angelou’s voice is that it brought together the literary — you see influences from Shakespeare, from Paul Laurence Dunbar, to all of those books she talked about reading, with the incredible richness of the African-American women’s oral tradition, that mother wit, that deep understanding, that make a way out of no way that has gotten our people so very, very far.
She married those and understood that poetry wasn’t only a written form, but also a form that was meant to be spoken, to be recited, to be sung. I don’t think there’s any writer who had a better understanding of what those two traditions together could make possible.
JEFFREY BROWN: And when and how did you first connect with her work?
ELIZABETH ALEXANDER: I read her work, I’m sure, when I was a child. I can’t imagine that was ever not there. And I’m sure that I also first came to “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.”
She was a prolific, prolific memoirist. She wrote six memoirs which are now together in a really beautiful Modern Library edition. And those memoirs, her telling her life story and telling the truth about her life, telling the truth about what it meant to go from silence to telling her story, talking about the pain, talking about the struggle, talking about a history of the entire second half of the 20th century in struggle, all of that is in those memoirs.
And I think that that is how most readers came to know her in the first place.
JEFFREY BROWN: Well, and those memoirs, of course, told of a remarkable story, a larger-than-life tale. We listed some of the things she did, and also intersecting with so many important figures and moments in that history.
ELIZABETH ALEXANDER: Yes. And that’s why I mentioned this six volumes all in one, because when you read it through over 1,000 pages, you almost can’t believe the life.
And yet it’s utterly credible, because she had that kind of dynamism, certainly, and that kind of profound understanding of her own voice and that if you, as she said, have a song to sing, you must open your mouth and share it. Who are you not to share that song? And I think that authenticity connected her with Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, James Baldwin, and so many other people who made change.
JEFFREY BROWN: You, of course, shared that experience of writing for and reciting at inauguration. I wonder, did you ever talk to her about it? Did you share that experience with her?
ELIZABETH ALEXANDER: Well, an extraordinary thing happened. I never had the privilege of meeting her.
But a few weeks of before the inaugural, after it had been announced that I was to write the poem, she found me and called me. And the moment I heard that voice on the phone, before she even said her name, I knew that voice, I knew who it was.
And we proceeded to have a very beautiful conversation, which I think for her had a sense not only of kindness — I was in the throes of doing something that seemed impossible, writing that poem — but also a sense of history, a sense of continuity, and a sense that, as an elder, it was for her to make that continuity.
I asked her at the end of the conversation if she was going to come to the inaugural, to Washington. And she said, “Oh, no.” She laughed. She said: “I have done that. I’m going stay at home. I’m going to open a bottle of wine, and I’m going to enjoy a potage of my own preparation.” And she said, “I will laugh, I will cry and I will sing.”
So it felt to me like a real benediction.
JEFFREY BROWN: All right, the wonderful and remarkable life of Maya Angelou.
Elizabeth Alexander, thanks so much.
ELIZABETH ALEXANDER: My pleasure. Thank you for asking.
Jeffrey Brown has our appreciation.MAYA ANGELOU: A rock, a river, a tree.
JEFFREY BROWN: On a chilly January day in 1993, Maya Angelou captured national attention and, in her own special way, the spirit of the moment for the inauguration of President Bill Clinton. The poem she read, “On the Pulse of the Morning,” became a national bestseller.
MAYA ANGELOU: But, today, the rock cries out to us, clearly, forcefully, come, you may stand upon my back and face your distant destiny, but seek no haven in my shadow. I will give you no more hiding place down here.
JEFFREY BROWN: Long before that moment, Maya Angelou had become one of the most respected authors and cultural figures of her generation, making a remarkable journey from rough beginnings.
She was born Marguerite Johnson and spent much of her childhood in racially segregated Arkansas. After her mother’s boyfriend raped her at the age of 7, she retreated into silence for years. In 2012, at the New York Public Library, she remembered how books came into her life in those troubled times.
MAYA ANGELOU: I had been abused, and I returned to a little village in Arkansas. And a black lady took me to — she knew I wasn’t speaking. I refused to speak. For six years, I was a volunteer mute.
She took me to the library in the black school. The library probably had about 300 books, maybe. She said, “I want you to read every book in this library.” It seemed to me thousands of books.
JEFFREY BROWN: Angelou became a single mother at 17, worked a variety of jobs, including at a strip club, and even ran a brothel. Eventually, taking on a new name, she became a singer and dancer.
In 1969, at the urging of James Baldwin, she chronicled that early life in the first of what would become a series of memoirs, “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.” It won critical praise and made her one of the first African-American women to author a bestseller.
Angelou used her new voice to explore the effects of racism and sexism on personal identity. One such work was her 1978 poem, “And Still I Rise.”
MAYA ANGELOU: Out of the huts of history’s shame, I rise. Up from a past rooted in pain, I rise. A black ocean, leaping and wide, welling and swelling, I bear in the tide. Leaving behind nights of terror and fear, I rise. Into a daybreak miraculously clear, I rise, bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave. I am the dream and the hope of the slave, and so, naturally, there I go rising.
JEFFREY BROWN: Angelou never went to college, but ultimately received more than 30 honorary degrees. She also became a prominent civil rights activist, Tony-nominated stage actress, college professor and frequent guest on television shows.
Along the way, her life intersected, in work and friendship, with a number of other well-known figures, from Malcolm X to Oprah Winfrey. In 2012, she spoke in a profile by PBS affiliate KQED from her home in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
MAYA ANGELOU: Friendship, it keeps you alive, it keeps you awake, it keeps you trying to be the best. And in the middle of the night, when you’re lonely and most — and feel most — most at odds with yourself and with life and even with God, you can call a friend.
JEFFREY BROWN: In 2011, President Obama presented Angelou with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the country’s highest civilian honor.
Today, the president called her a — quote — “brilliant writer, a fierce friend and a truly phenomenal woman.”
Maya Angelou died this morning at her Winston-Salem home. She was 86 years old.
Published on Dec 18, 2012
This is video footage of Maya
Angelou reciting her poem "On the Pulse of Morning" at the 1993
Presidential Inaugural. This footage is official public record produced
by the White House Television (WHTV) crew, provided by the Clinton
Presidential Library.Date: January 20, 1993
Location: US Capitol. Washington, DC
I feel a loss with her death yesterday, 28 MAY 14. She was a blessing, and she is missed already. Godspeed Maya Angelou, and thank you. From +PBS NewsHour .....
Remembering Maya Angelou’s iconic voice
Drawing on a childhood of abuse and segregation, writer and author Maya Angelou moved the nation. Works such as her 1978 poem, “And Still I Rise,” explored the effects of racism and sexism on personal identity, with a voice that married oral and written literary traditions. Jeffrey Brown discusses with Elizabeth Alexander of Yale University why the voice of Angelou resonates so profoundly.
RIPT
JEFFREY BROWN: And with us now is Elizabeth Alexander, chair of the African-American Studies Department at Yale University, and herself a prominent poet. She read an original work at President Obama’s first inauguration.TRANSCRIPT
Welcome to you.So, what made Maya Angelou such a unique voice? What stood out for you?
ELIZABETH ALEXANDER, University: What I think was extraordinary about Maya Angelou’s voice is that it brought together the literary — you see influences from Shakespeare, from Paul Laurence Dunbar, to all of those books she talked about reading, with the incredible richness of the African-American women’s oral tradition, that mother wit, that deep understanding, that make a way out of no way that has gotten our people so very, very far.
She married those and understood that poetry wasn’t only a written form, but also a form that was meant to be spoken, to be recited, to be sung. I don’t think there’s any writer who had a better understanding of what those two traditions together could make possible.
JEFFREY BROWN: And when and how did you first connect with her work?
ELIZABETH ALEXANDER: I read her work, I’m sure, when I was a child. I can’t imagine that was ever not there. And I’m sure that I also first came to “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.”
She was a prolific, prolific memoirist. She wrote six memoirs which are now together in a really beautiful Modern Library edition. And those memoirs, her telling her life story and telling the truth about her life, telling the truth about what it meant to go from silence to telling her story, talking about the pain, talking about the struggle, talking about a history of the entire second half of the 20th century in struggle, all of that is in those memoirs.
And I think that that is how most readers came to know her in the first place.
JEFFREY BROWN: Well, and those memoirs, of course, told of a remarkable story, a larger-than-life tale. We listed some of the things she did, and also intersecting with so many important figures and moments in that history.
ELIZABETH ALEXANDER: Yes. And that’s why I mentioned this six volumes all in one, because when you read it through over 1,000 pages, you almost can’t believe the life.
And yet it’s utterly credible, because she had that kind of dynamism, certainly, and that kind of profound understanding of her own voice and that if you, as she said, have a song to sing, you must open your mouth and share it. Who are you not to share that song? And I think that authenticity connected her with Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, James Baldwin, and so many other people who made change.
JEFFREY BROWN: You, of course, shared that experience of writing for and reciting at inauguration. I wonder, did you ever talk to her about it? Did you share that experience with her?
ELIZABETH ALEXANDER: Well, an extraordinary thing happened. I never had the privilege of meeting her.
But a few weeks of before the inaugural, after it had been announced that I was to write the poem, she found me and called me. And the moment I heard that voice on the phone, before she even said her name, I knew that voice, I knew who it was.
And we proceeded to have a very beautiful conversation, which I think for her had a sense not only of kindness — I was in the throes of doing something that seemed impossible, writing that poem — but also a sense of history, a sense of continuity, and a sense that, as an elder, it was for her to make that continuity.
I asked her at the end of the conversation if she was going to come to the inaugural, to Washington. And she said, “Oh, no.” She laughed. She said: “I have done that. I’m going stay at home. I’m going to open a bottle of wine, and I’m going to enjoy a potage of my own preparation.” And she said, “I will laugh, I will cry and I will sing.”
So it felt to me like a real benediction.
JEFFREY BROWN: All right, the wonderful and remarkable life of Maya Angelou.
Elizabeth Alexander, thanks so much.
ELIZABETH ALEXANDER: My pleasure. Thank you for asking.
From rough beginnings, respected writer and activist Maya Angelou made a remarkable journey
Maya
Angelou, one of the most respected cultural figures of her generation,
has died at the age of 86. Her debut memoir, “I Know Why the Caged Bird
Sings,” made her one of the first bestselling African-American female
authors. Jeffrey Brown reports on how an early trauma made her turn
toward books and how she learned to use her voice to explore the effects
of racism and sexism on identity.
MORE VIDEO
TRANSCRIPT
JUDY WOODRUFF: Finally tonight: remembering author, poet and civil rights activist Maya Angelou.JEFFREY BROWN: On a chilly January day in 1993, Maya Angelou captured national attention and, in her own special way, the spirit of the moment for the inauguration of President Bill Clinton. The poem she read, “On the Pulse of the Morning,” became a national bestseller.
MAYA ANGELOU: But, today, the rock cries out to us, clearly, forcefully, come, you may stand upon my back and face your distant destiny, but seek no haven in my shadow. I will give you no more hiding place down here.
JEFFREY BROWN: Long before that moment, Maya Angelou had become one of the most respected authors and cultural figures of her generation, making a remarkable journey from rough beginnings.
She was born Marguerite Johnson and spent much of her childhood in racially segregated Arkansas. After her mother’s boyfriend raped her at the age of 7, she retreated into silence for years. In 2012, at the New York Public Library, she remembered how books came into her life in those troubled times.
MAYA ANGELOU: I had been abused, and I returned to a little village in Arkansas. And a black lady took me to — she knew I wasn’t speaking. I refused to speak. For six years, I was a volunteer mute.
She took me to the library in the black school. The library probably had about 300 books, maybe. She said, “I want you to read every book in this library.” It seemed to me thousands of books.
JEFFREY BROWN: Angelou became a single mother at 17, worked a variety of jobs, including at a strip club, and even ran a brothel. Eventually, taking on a new name, she became a singer and dancer.
In 1969, at the urging of James Baldwin, she chronicled that early life in the first of what would become a series of memoirs, “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.” It won critical praise and made her one of the first African-American women to author a bestseller.
Angelou used her new voice to explore the effects of racism and sexism on personal identity. One such work was her 1978 poem, “And Still I Rise.”
MAYA ANGELOU: Out of the huts of history’s shame, I rise. Up from a past rooted in pain, I rise. A black ocean, leaping and wide, welling and swelling, I bear in the tide. Leaving behind nights of terror and fear, I rise. Into a daybreak miraculously clear, I rise, bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave. I am the dream and the hope of the slave, and so, naturally, there I go rising.
JEFFREY BROWN: Angelou never went to college, but ultimately received more than 30 honorary degrees. She also became a prominent civil rights activist, Tony-nominated stage actress, college professor and frequent guest on television shows.
Along the way, her life intersected, in work and friendship, with a number of other well-known figures, from Malcolm X to Oprah Winfrey. In 2012, she spoke in a profile by PBS affiliate KQED from her home in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
MAYA ANGELOU: Friendship, it keeps you alive, it keeps you awake, it keeps you trying to be the best. And in the middle of the night, when you’re lonely and most — and feel most — most at odds with yourself and with life and even with God, you can call a friend.
JEFFREY BROWN: In 2011, President Obama presented Angelou with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the country’s highest civilian honor.
Today, the president called her a — quote — “brilliant writer, a fierce friend and a truly phenomenal woman.”
Maya Angelou died this morning at her Winston-Salem home. She was 86 years old.
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