WOMEN AND POWER; Leaving a Legacy

What is it you want to be remembered for? What would you like to be said of you?

What is your Legacy?

Maya Angelou born Marguerite Ann Johnson (April 4, 1928 – May 28, 2014) was an American author and poet. She published seven autobiographies, three books of essays, and several books of poetry, and is credited with a list of plays, movies, and television shows spanning more than fifty years. She received dozens of awards and over thirty honorary doctoral degrees. Angelou is best known for her series of seven autobiographies, which focus on her childhood and early adult experiences. The first, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969), tells of her life up to the age of seventeen, and brought her international recognition and acclaim.

She became a poet and writer after a series of occupations as a young adult, including fry cook, prostitute, night-club dancer and performer, cast-member of the opera Porgy and Bess, coordinator for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and journalist in Egypt and Ghana during the days of decolonization. She was an actor, writer, director, and producer of plays, movies, and public television programs. Since 1982, she taught at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, where she held the first lifetime Reynolds Professorship of American Studies. She was active in the Civil Rights movement, and worked with Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X. Since the 1990s she made around eighty appearances a year on the lecture circuit, something she continued into her eighties. In 1993, Angelou recited her poem "On the Pulse of Morning" at President Bill Clinton's inauguration, the first poet to make an inaugural recitation since Robert Frost at John F. Kennedy's inauguration in 1961.

With the publication of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Angelou publicly discussed aspects of her personal life. She was respected as a spokesperson of black people and women, and her works have been considered a defense of black culture. Attempts have been made to ban her books from some US libraries, but her works are widely used in schools and universities worldwide. Angelou's major works have been labeled as autobiographical fiction, but many critics have characterized them as autobiographies. She made a deliberate attempt to challenge the common structure of the autobiography by critiquing, changing, and expanding the genre. Her books center on themes such as racism, identity, family, and travel.

Some Maya Angelou quotes

• "I believe that each of us comes from the creator trailing wisps of glory." 

• "I am a Woman, Phenomenally.;Phenomenal Woman,that's me." - Phenomenal Woman, poem (1978) 

• "I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel." 

• "You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them." 

• "My mission in life is not merely to survive, but to thrive; and to do so with some passion, some compassion, some humor, and some style." 

• "The need for change bulldozed a road down the center of my mind." 

• "Try to be a rainbow in someone's cloud." 

• "I've learned that you shouldn't go through life with a catcher's mitt on both hands; you need to be able to throw something back." 

• "We may encounter many defeats but we must not be defeated." 

• "You are the sum total of everything you've ever seen, heard, eaten, smelled, been told, forgot - it's all there. Everything influences each of us, and because of that I try to make sure that my experiences are positive." 

• "One isn't necessarily born with courage, but one is born with potential. Without courage, we cannot practice any other virtue with consistency. We can't be kind, true, merciful, generous, or honest." 

• "Love recognizes no barriers. It jumps hurdles, leaps fences, penetrates walls to arrive at its destination full of hope." 

• "Nothing can dim the light which shines from within."

Fare thee well Phenomenal Woman