Maya Angelou - A Favorite Author →

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A New Kind of Memoirist

When I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings was published in 1969, Angelou was hailed as a new kind of memoirist, one of the first African-American women who were able to discuss their personal lives publicly. According to scholar Hilton Als, up to that point, Black female writers were marginalized so they could not present themselves as central characters in the literature they wrote.

The United States Mint has begun shipping the first coins in the American Women Quarters (AWQ) Program. These circulating quarters honoring Maya Angelou are manufactured at the Mint facilities in Philadelphia and Denver. Coins featuring additional honorees will begin shipping later in 2022 and through 2025.

"Marguerite Annie Johnson Angelou (April 4, 1928, to May 28, 2014), known as Maya Angelou, was an American author, actress, screenwriter, dancer, poet, and civil rights activist best known for her 1969 memoir, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, which made literary history as the first nonfiction best-seller by an African-American woman."

She used her skills to leave people feeling different because of her writing. Her writing approach has sometimes been labeled "autobiographical fiction" because it went beyond some traditional bounds. She wrote, often speaking in the first person singular, using the word "I" when what she meant was "we.” This approach is also considered the "slave narrative tradition," it is a way to buffer a claim intended to be meant for everyone, not just the author. Like the oral tradition she followed in her poetry, her message came in the more expressive language of the street or ghetto.  Her autobiographies carried a message beyond just her life, and she wanted to correct negative stereotypes of black culture. 

President Obama gave her the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2011. The good news is you don’t have to be famous to leave people remembering how you made them feel. It happens whether you intend it or not. If you care about someone, they will know. If you don’t care, they will know.

Her quotes & poems were more than feel-good platitudes but hard truths you could feel.

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Still, I Rise by Maya Angelou

(See Poetry Reviewed Section click here)

Quotes

“People will forget what you have said, they will forget what you did, but they will never forget how you made them feel.” 

“Try to be a rainbow in someone’s cloud.” 

"Do the best you can until you know better, then when you know better, do better."

There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.

If you don't like something, change it. If you can't change it, change your attitude.

“I don't trust people who don't love themselves and tell me, 'I love you.'

An African saying, “ Be careful when a naked person offers you a shirt.”

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