Another Hero

Maya Angelou

I've commented before that Maya was one of my favorite writers but she is also a hero of mine.  I have read almost every book she has written but my favorites are her 5 autobiographies starting with I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.  I highly recommend each and every one of them. Her volume of poetry, Just Give Me a Cool Drink of Water 'Fore I Die (1971), was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize.

Maya was born Marguerite Johnson on April 4, 1928 in St. Louis, Missouri.  As a child, Maya was passed back and forth between her mother and grandmother. At age eight, she was raped by her mother's boyfriend, who was then killed by her uncles. The trauma caused her to become a mute for six years.   Her teen years were filled with experimentation.  She was a madam and bluffed her way into becoming a dancer.

At 16 she gave birth to her son Guy.  As a young adult she toured Europe and Africa in the musical Porgy and Bess. On returning to New York City in the 1960s, she joined the Harlem Writers Guild and became involved in black activism. She married an African and spent several years in Ghana as an editor of an African newspaper, where she began to take her life, her activism, and her writing more seriously.

In 1993, Maya read On the Pulse of Morning at Bill Clinton’s Presidential inauguration, a poem written at his request. It was only the second time a poet had been asked to read at an inauguration, the first being Robert Frost at the inauguration of John F. Kennedy.

Her story proves that anything is possible with courage making her one of my heroes.  Like in her poem And Still I Rise she continues to rise no matter what the circumstance and stays positive and hopeful for tomorrow.  She is an example for us all showing us that we can rise from poverty, hatred, abuse, prejudice or what ever life has handed out and become a compassionate, caring, forgiving citizen of the world.