Maya Angelou reciting her poem “On the Pulse of Morning” at President Bill Clinton’s inauguration in 1993. Source: wikimedia
By Aleyshka Barbosa ‘19
Born Marguerite Annie Johnson, Maya Angelou is a renowned poet, singer, memoirist, and civil rights activists. Her words are forever remembered by those that knew of all the great things she brought to this world, from April 4, 1928 – May 28, 2014.
Angelou published seven autobiographies, three books of essay, several books of poetry, as well as being a part of movies, plays, and television shows. She was a role model who recorded and celebrated the experience of being Black in the United States.
She is best known for her seven autobiographies that focused on her childhood and her poetry that continually shapes the life of others. On this month, we remember those that have left this earth and still walk it, that have created an eternal pathway for those who will not be silenced by the color of their skin or due to what society has labeled them to be. Maya Angelou was known for speaking about topics that many may never be able to grasp or fully put into words.
As linguist John McWhorter of The New Republic said in regards to her life, “Angelou’s life has certainly been a full one: from the hardscrabble Depression era South to pimp, prostitute, supper club chanteuse, performer in Porgy and Bess, coordinator for Martin Luther King Jr.’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference, journalist in Egypt and Ghana in the heady days of decolonization, comrade of Malcolm X, and eyewitness to the Watts riots. She knew King and Malcolm, Billie Holiday, and Abbey Lincoln.” In 2010, Barack Obama awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
The Human Family
by Maya Angelou
I note the obvious differences
in the human family.
Some of us are serious,
some thrive on comedy.
Some declare their lives are lived
as true profundity,
and others claim they really live
the real reality.
The variety of our skin tones
can confuse, bemuse, delight,
brown and pink and beige and purple,
tan and blue and white.
I’ve sailed upon the seven seas
and stopped in every land,
I’ve seen the wonders of the world
not yet one common man.
I know ten thousand women
called Jane and Mary Jane,
but I’ve not seen any two
who really were the same.
Mirror twins are different
although their features jibe,
and lovers think quite different thoughts
while lying side by side.
We love and lose in China,
we weep on England’s moors,
and laugh and moan in Guinea,
and thrive on Spanish shores.
We seek success in Finland,
are born and die in Maine.
In minor ways we differ,
in major we’re the same.
I note the obvious differences
between each sort and type,
but we are more alike, my friends,
than we are unalike.
We are more alike, my friends,
than we are unalike.
We are more alike, my friends,
than we are unalike.
