Wednesday, May 28, 2014
Dr. Maya Angelou, one of the most powerful voices of contemporary literature, died on Wednesday in her home in North Carolina. She was 86.
A statement issued by her family reads in part "Her family is extremely grateful that her ascension was not belabored by a loss of acuity or comprehension". They described her as a warrior for equality, tolerance and peace. She lived a life as a teacher, activist and artist.
Dr. Angelou’s long standing relationship with the African continent makes her loss felt in Africa as much as it is felt in the United States.
In 1961 met South African freedom fighter Vusumzi Make; they never officially married. She and her son Guy moved with Make to Cairo, where Angelou worked as an associate editor at the weekly English-language newspaper The Arab Observer. In 1962, her relationship with Make ended, and she and Guy moved to Accra, Ghana, he to attend college, but he was seriously injured in an automobile accident Angelou remained in Accra for his recovery and ended up staying there until 1965. She became an administrator at the University of Ghana, and was active in the African-American expatriate community. She was a feature editor for The African Review, a freelance writer for the Ghanaian Times, wrote and broadcast for Radio Ghana, and worked and performed for Ghana’s National Theatre. She performed in a revival of The Blacks in Geneva and Berlin.
In Accra, she became close friends with Malcolm X during his visit in the early 1960s. Angelou returned to the U.S. in 1965 to help him build a new civil rights organization, the Organization of Afro-American Unity; he was assassinated shortly afterward.
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