Maya Angelou

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Maya Angelou

• By Kathleen M. Salley
• July 19, 2002

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Maya Angelou

• Author
• Poet
• Civil rights activist
• Womens rights activist
• Professor
• World renowned speaker
• Professor
• Actress
• Playwright
• Entertainer
• Producer and director

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Early Years

• Born in 1928 in St. Louis
• Lived with her mother for just a short time
• Raped by her mothers boyfriend
• Was mute for several years
• Raised by her grandmother after her parents
  separated
• Lived in a tiny, totally segregated town in
  Arkansas
• At age 17 had her only child named Guy
• In her early 20s Grandmother died
• Mayas attitude towards life changed dramatically
• She would live fully

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Activist

• Married a South African freedom fighter
• In Cairo was editor of the Arab Observer, the
  only English-language newspaper in the Middle
  East
• In Ghana was feature editor of the African Review
  and taught at the University of Ghana
• With Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., she became the
  northern coordinator for the Southern Christian
  Leadership Conference
• Appointed by President Ford to the Bicentennial
  Commission

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Activist

• Appointed by President Carter to the National
  Commission on the Observance of International
  Womens Year
• Written and produced several prize winning
  documentaries promoting black rights and womens
  rights
• Nominated for an Emmy for her acting in Roots and
  her screen play Georgia which was the first
  screenplay to be filmed by a black woman
• Continues to lecture around the world

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BLACK FAMILY PLEDGE
By Dr. Maya Angelou Because we have
forgotten our ancestors our children no longer
give us honor. Because we have lost the path
our ancestors cleared, kneeling in perilous
undergrowth, our children cannot find their way.
Because we have banished the God of our
ancestors, our children can not pray.
Because the long wails of our ancestors have
faded beyond our hearing, our children cannot
hear us crying. Because we have abandoned
our wisdom of mothering and fathering, our
befuddled children give birth to children they
neither want nor understand. Because we
have forgotten how to love, the adversary is
within our gates, and holds us up to the mirror
of the world, shouting, Regard the loveless.
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Therefore, we pledge to bind ourselves again to
one another our lowliest, To keep
company with our loneliest, To educate our
illiterate, To
feed our starving,To clothe our ragged, To do
all good things, knowing that we are more than
keepers of our brothers and sisters. We are our
brothers and sisters. In honor of those who
toiled and implored God with golden tongues, and
in gratitude to the same God who brought us out
of hopeless desolation, We make this pledge.
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Philosophy

• Justice begins with each of us. We must seek
  justice, but at the same time we must care not to
  lust after revenge. We are no better than our
  adversaries. We should always be on the other
  side from justice.

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Love is What Really Matters

• Maya does not mean the mushy kind of love. She
  means the love that is the condition in the
  human spirit so profound that it allows us to
  rise, that condition that allows people to dream
  of God, to imagine golden roads. She states
  that this condition has allowed the dumb to
  write spirituals, Russian songs and Irish lilts.
  She believes that love gives us a great deal of
  confidence about life. If you want to liberate
  someone, love them.

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Caged Bird" A free bird leaps on the back of the
wind and floats downstream till the current
ends and dips his wing in the orange sun rays and
dares to claim the sky. But a bird that
stalks down his narrow cage can seldom see
through his bars of rage his wings are clipped
and his feet are tied so he opens his throat to
sing. The caged bird sings with a fearful
trill of things unknown but longed for still and
his tune is heard on the distant hills for the
caged bird sings of freedom. The free bird
thinks of another breeze and the trade winds soft
through singing trees and the fat worms waiting
on a dawn-bright lawn and he names the sky his
own. But a caged bird stands on the grave of
dreams his shadow shouts on a nightmare
scream his wings are clipped and his feet are
tied so he opens his throat to sing. The caged
bird sings with a fearful trill of things
unknown but longed for still and his tune is
heard on the distant hill for the caged
bird sings of freedom. "Caged Bird" A free
bird leaps on the back of the wind and floats
downstream till the current ends and dips his
wing in the orange sun rays and dares to claim
the sky. "Caged Bird" A free bird leaps on the
back of the wind and floats downstream till the
current ends and dips his wing in the orange sun
rays and dares to claim the sky.
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"Caged Bird" A free bird leaps on the back of
the wind and floats downstream till the current
ends and dips his wing in the orange sun rays and
dares to claim the sky.
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But a bird that stalks down his narrow cage can
seldom see through his bars of rage his wings are
clipped and his feet are tied so he opens his
throat to sing.
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The caged bird sings with a fearful trill of
things unknown but longed for still and his tune
is heard on the distant hills for the caged
bird sings of freedom.
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The free bird thinks of another breeze and the
trade winds soft through singing trees and the
fat worms waiting on a dawn-bright lawn and he
names the sky his own. But a caged bird stands
on the grave of dreams his shadow shouts on a
nightmare scream his wings are clipped and his
feet are tied so he opens his throat to sing.
15
The caged bird sings with a fearful trill of
things unknown but longed for still and his tune
is heard on the distant hill for the caged
bird sings of freedom.
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Work Cited
http//www.galegroup.com/free_resources/bhm/bio/an
gelou_m.htm
http//iisd1.iisd.ca/50comm/panel/pan04.htm
http//www.math.buffalo.edu/sww/angelou/angelou.b
io.bib.htmlcontax
http//melanet.com/watoto/pledge.html