May 29, 2014
“We will not miss her because of what she did. We will miss her because of what she was in our national life. Over and above the achievements there was to Maya Angelou a presence, a warm thereness that are simply not duplicated anywhere in American popular culture. Sometimes to certain African-American women, once they have lived enough, seen enough, endured enough, there comes a certain … majesty, a serene formidability and regal grace that stem precisely from the realization that, having lived, seen and endured, nothing really frightens them anymore.”
Read the rest of syndicated columnist Leonard Pitts’ biographical tribute to Maya Angelou.
Related: On NPR’s All Things Considered, Wake Forest University professor of English and Women’s Gender and Sexuality Studies, Mary DeShazer, talks about her colleague Maya Angelou. Hear the 5-minute interview here.
posted by Kathy Vestal
