By Kathy Wray Coleman, editor-in-chief
(www.clevelandurbannews.com) / (www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com)
WINSTON-SALEM, North Carolina-Celebrated poet, author, actress, movie producer and Civil Rights activist Maya Angelou (pictured) is dead at 86. A recipient of 50 honorary doctoral degrees and numerous accommodations and awards, including the Lincoln Metal , three Grammy Awards, and the Presidential Metal of Freedom, which United States President Barack Obama bestowed on her in 2011, Angelou died peacefully at 8 am Wednesday morning at her home in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, her family told reporters.
"She lived a life as a teacher, activist, artist and human being. She was a warrior for equality, tolerance and peace," said her only child and son Guy Love in a press release on Wednesday. "The family is extremely appreciative of the time we had with her and we know that she is looking down upon us with love."
President Barack Obama said in a press release to Cleveland Urban News.Com, Ohio's leading digital Black newspaper, that Angelou's death is a loss.
"Today Michelle and I join millions around the world in remembering one of the brightness lights of our time, " said Obama.
"Over the course of her remarkable life, Maya was many things, an author, poet, Civil Rights activist, playwright, actress, director, composer and singer," the president said." But above all, she was a storyteller, and her greatest stories were true."
Obama said that his mother named his younger sister Maya after the famed poet.
Angelou wrote and published seven autobiographies, three essays and numerous books and plays. She toured Europe in 1954 and 1955 with the stage opera Porgy and Bess and published her first book in 1969.
Titled 'I Know Why The Cage Bird Sings,' the book, the first of a seven-volume series of autopbiographies that details her early years as an abused child and was written with help from novelist James Baldwin, brought critical acclaim and later became the impetus behind a made-for-television movie.
Dubbed by her peers as a global renaissance woman and respected by the Black community and others as as inspirational voice of all time, Angelou was an advocate of equal opportunity across racial and other lines and paid tribute through her work to activists leaders, including former South African President Nelson Mandela, Fannie Lou Hamer, Malcolm X, Ossie Davis, the Rev Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Corretta Scott King.
Read the biography below on Angelou, compliments of Maya Angelou.Com
CLICK THIS LINK HERE TO VISIT THE OFFICIAL WEBSITE OF MAYA ANGELOU.COM
Born on April 4th, 1928, in St. Louis, Missouri, Dr. Angelou was raised in St. Louis and Stamps, Arkansas. In Stamps, Dr. Angelou experienced the brutality of racial discrimination, but she also absorbed the unshakable faith and values of traditional African-American family, community, and culture.
As a teenager, Dr. Angelou’s love for the arts won her a scholarship to study dance and drama at San Francisco’s Labor School. At 14, she dropped out to become San Francisco’s first African-American female cable car conductor. She later finished high school, giving birth to her son, Guy, a few weeks after graduation. As a young single mother, she supported her son by working as a waitress and cook, however her passion for music, dance, performance, and poetry would soon take center stage.
In 1954 and 1955, Dr. Angelou toured Europe with a production of the opera Porgy and Bess. She studied modern dance with Martha Graham, danced with Alvin Ailey on television variety shows and, in 1957, recorded her first album,Calypso Lady. In 1958, she moved to New York, where she joined the Harlem Writers Guild, acted in the historic Off-Broadway production of Jean Genet's The Blacks and wrote and performed Cabaret for Freedom.
In 1960, Dr. Angelou moved to Cairo, Egypt where she served as editor of the English language weekly The Arab Observer. The next year, she moved to Ghana where she taught at the University of Ghana's School of Music and Drama, worked as feature editor for The African Review and wrote for The Ghanaian Times.
During her years abroad, Dr. Angelou read and studied voraciously, mastering French, Spanish, Italian, Arabic and the West African language Fanti. While in Ghana, she met with Malcolm Xand, in 1964, returned to America to help him build his new Organization of African American Unity.
Shortly after her arrival in the United States, Malcolm X was assassinated, and the organization dissolved. Soon after X's assassination, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. asked Dr. Angelou to serve as Northern Coordinator for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. King's assassination, falling on her birthday in 1968, left her devastated.
With the guidance of her friend, the novelist James Baldwin, she began work on the book that would become I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. Published in 1970, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings was published to international acclaim and enormous popular success. The list of her published verse, non-fiction, and fiction now includes more than 30 bestselling titles.
A trailblazer in film and television, Dr. Angelou wrote the screenplay and composed the score for the 1972 film Georgia, Georgia. Her script, the first by an African American woman ever to be filmed, was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize.
She appeared on television and in films including the landmark television adaptation ofAlex Haley's Roots (1977) and John Singleton's Poetic Justice (1993). In 1996, she directed her first feature film, Down in the Delta. In 2008, she composed poetry for and narrated the award-winning documentary The Black Candle, directed by M.K. Asante.
Dr. Angelou has served on two presidential committees, was awarded the Presidential Medal of Arts in 2000, the Lincoln Medal in 2008, and has received 3 Grammy Awards. President Clinton requested that she compose a poem to read at his inauguration in 1993. Dr. Angelou's reading of her poem "On the Pulse of the Morning" was broadcast live around the world.
Dr. Angelou has received over 50 honorary degrees and is Reynolds Professor of American Studies at Wake Forest University.
Dr. Angelou’s words and actions continue to stir our souls, energize our bodies, liberate our minds, and heal our hearts. (References by Maya Angelou. Com CLICK THIS LINK HERE TO VISIT THE OFFICIAL WEBSITE OF MAYA ANGELOU.COM (www.clevelandurbannews.com) / (www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com)
