Known for her civil rights activism, beautiful poetry, and moving autobiographies, Maya Angelou is a brilliant public intellectual who has enormously influenced society today. Dr. Angelou worked with Malcom X and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr to accomplish her dreams racial and gender equality.
During Maya Angelou’s lifetime, she touched the lives of readers through her seven autobiographies, several collections of essays, and numerous poems. She has been greatly appreciated for her work as a writer and acclaimed for her fearless activism for civil rights and the women’s movement. Her childhood clearly explains her motives for equality and her she fearlessly shares her powerful story publicly. I was especially drawn to Maya Angelou after listening to Oprah’s “Super Soul Podcast” interview called “Dr. Maya Angelou: Words that Changed Her Life” in which Dr. Angelou talks about her hardship as a child, being raped by her mother’s boyfriend, and being so damaged from this experience she lost the will to speak for five years. She says that she knew she had a voice, but she was too afraid to use it. When she was 13 years old, she began to use her voice again and developed a very strong relationship with her Mother, Vivian Baxter. Dr. Angelou speaks about her mother in an admiral way, noting that when she received the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Obama, she thought of her mother and owed it to her mother and grandmother’s teachings.
Dr. Angelou has had such an incredible cultural impact on the world and throughout her life, inspired millions of people to follow her legacy. The way she connected her literary work with social issues was sensational, especially during the civil rights movement. President Barak Obama stated his appreciation for her after her death in 2014 by saying “Above all, she was a storyteller — and her greatest stories were true” and Nancy Pelosi described her as a “phenomenal woman of insight, eloquence and artistry who gave voice to the rawness and loftiness of our history and our humanity”. Angelou’s creative intelligence brought light to the political realm and she is beloved by so many political figures and social activists. Today, almost 5 years since Angelou’s death, her life is celebrated by all who are thankful for her cultural influence on the world and her admiral work must continue to be reminded to all generations.
Intellect Insider 