IN REMEMBRANCE OF DR. MAYA ANGELOU

On a bitterly cold morning in January of 1993 during the first Inauguration of President William Jefferson Clinton, the late raconteur, Maya Angelou, captured the very soul of our nation while reciting her poem entitled, “On the Pulse of Morning.” She was only the second poet to recite at a presidential swearing-in ceremony.

I sat in the cold with other members of the Congress, the new president, vice-president, members of the Supreme Court and tens of thousands who had come to witness the inaugural ceremonies.

Dr. Angelou, like the new president, was born in Arkansas, mesmerized all that heard her voice that morning. In her lyrical poem she said that an ancient rock cried out for all of humanity, challenging people to stand upon its back, and face a collective destiny, and a changing world.

In her eclectic life, Dr. Angelou, a single parent who struggled financially to raise her young son, pursued careers as a stage actress, a poet, a street car driver, a magazine editor, a civil rights organizer, a college professor and a calypso dancer.

A winner of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest award given to a civilian by our government, Dr. Angelou lived a full and purposeful life. Just days before her passing she was planning a social gathering in her home in New York City.

She was an elegantly striking woman who stood nearly six feet tall. She liked to dance, she drank bourbon and she was passionately devoted to the reading of scripture. She and a fellow writer, the late Amiri Baraka once joyously danced over the ashes of the great writer, Langston Hughes.

In her voracious writings, Dr. Angelou explored the concepts of personal identify and resilience through the multi-faceted lens of racial identity, sexual engagement, the human family and the necessity to love.

In 1969, Dr. Angelou’s acclaimed autobiographic work, “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,” became a best seller, and its commercial success opened the door for other African-American female writers who until that time had been largely ignored by the publishing industry.

Ever an instructor and teacher, Dr. Angelou, a full professor, taught for years at Wake Forest University, a relatively small liberal arts institution in North Carolina. Her presence in the lecture halls of Wake Forest drastically affected the lives of many of the students and teachers she encountered. Students from universities located hundreds of miles from Wake Forest flocked to the school to listen to Dr. Angelou’s lectures. Those who wanted to speak with her were given her personal phone number at her home.

While she befriended presidents such as Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, Dr. Angelou was comfortable with the men and women who found themselves unemployed and wedded to urban street corners and coal mines.

During the eight decades and six years that Dr. Angelou lived among us she gave of herself without any thought of personal gain. She was unabashedly committed to the improvement of the human condition. She loved people with no concern for their race, their place of birth or their religious beliefs.

Indeed, the world has lost one of it great citizens, and God has gained another angel. She wrote and articulated so many profoundly important messages. I shall

never forget that January morning when she charged our nation, intellectually and spiritually. Her presence is etched in my soul.

“No one can dim the light that shines from within,” she once admonished us. Dr. Angelou’s light shall shine eternally.