Maya Angelou (8 page)

During her prolific career, Angelou also had several experiences directing for stage, television, and film. In 1974 she directed a film,
All Day Long
, from her original screenplay, while in 1968 she directed a play,
Moon on a Rainbow Shawl
, written by Errol John. But it was not until 1997 that she engaged in her first major project as a director, with the film
Down on the Delta
, starring Wesley Snipes and her
How to Make an American Quilt
costar Alfre Woodard. The film is about a couple from Mississippi who head for Chicago looking for a better life.

In the early 1990s she received two Grammy Awards from the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (NARAS) for achievement in the music industry, under the category “Best Spoken Word or Non-Musical Album.” The first was for her recording of “On the Pulse of Morning” (1994), followed a year later by her tape of “Phenomenal Woman: Four Poems Celebrating Women.” A third Grammy was awarded in 2002 in the nonfiction category for her recording of her sixth autobiography,
A Song Flung Up
.

In the first decade of the twenty-first century, at the age when most actors would have been basking in retirement, Angelou became even more active in film portrayals. She had a small role in Tyler Perry's
Madea's Family Reunion
(2006), where critics praised her for reciting her poem “In and Out of Time” with the actress Cicely Tyson. In 2008 she narrated a Holocaust documentary,
As Seen through These Eyes
, about artists in concentration camps who fought Hitler with their drawings and paintings. Directed by Hilary Helstein, the documentary received mixed reviews. In 2009 she appeared in Jeff Stilson's hilarious film
Good Hair
, which featured Maya Angelou, Chris Rock, and Al Sharpton.

In addition to being a recognized actor and writer, Angelou received a number of special awards commemorating her service to the humanities. Again the list is partial, a mere hint at the wide range of tributes Dr. Angelou has received from civic groups across the country. Many of the unique works of art that my husband and I viewed in her sculpture garden testify to her having been honored by institutions that do not always boast international reputations.

One of her most prestigious awards occurred in 1975, when President Gerald Ford named her to the American Revolution Bicentennial Council. Angelou wore this hat gracefully, as a patriotic duty: “I am an American, as much as the Irish who live here are Americans…. There are many things
I'm proud of and many things I'm disappointed in, referring to my country. It would be the same if I lived in Birmingham, Alabama, or Birmingham, England. But I am an American” (“Icon” 1997).

In 1976, a year after the appointment from President Ford, the
Ladies' Home Journal
named Maya Angelou Woman of the Year in Communications. In 1977, President Jimmy Carter named her to a commission in observance of International Women's Year. In 1993, following her Inaugural reading, she became a friend of president and Mrs. Clinton.

She has also been honored by foundations, receiving a Yale University Fellowship in 1970 and the enviable Rockefeller Foundation Scholarship in 1975. In the same year she received the Horatio Alger Award, Alger being an American novelist who wrote about poor children who eventually became successful. In 1982, at the age of fifty-four, she was named first Reynolds Professor of American Studies at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, a lifetime appointment. Two years later, the new governor, James B. Hunt, appointed her to the board of the North Carolina Arts Council. In 1992 she received the
Essence
Woman of the Year Award. She also began her involvement in the creation of the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, a London-based institution.

Nor was her political commitment limited to the Clinton and Obama administrations or to British children. She also took what could have been a considerable risk when she actively supported the rights of gay marriage in New York State in the summer of 2009 (freedomtomarryorg. Web. December 3, 2014). Because of her unflinching support of civil rights and gay rights, Angelou was vilified by the right-wing group, the Westboro Baptist Church, who had threatened to disrupt the funeral held at Wake Forest University. Their efforts were unsuccessful.

During her lifetime the activist/writer continued to earn praise from liberal and moderate institutions. In 2006 she received the John Hope Franklin Award, named for the noted black historian (1915–2009). In the same year she earned the Mother Teresa Award, given in remembrance of the Albanian nun (1910–1997) who left the convent to devote her life to the poor. Two years later she received the Lincoln Medal, an honor presented by the Ford's Theater Society that demonstrates leadership, wisdom, eloquence, and other aspects of Abraham Lincoln's legacy. She shared this honor with the actress Ruby Dee (1924?–2014) and with the late justice Sandra Day O'Connor (1981–2002). In 2013, at the National Book Awards, she received the Literarian Award for Outstanding Service to the American Literary Community. Her greatest civic honor occurred in 2011, when President Barack Obama bestowed on Dr. Angelou the Presidential Medal of Freedom for her achievements in literature.

Meanwhile, her work had continued to diversify. In the late 1990s Angelou reportedly communicated to her public through the Prodigy Internet service provider, and she had helped to organize churches on Public Television. She also participated in the Black Image circuit—African American women models, lawyers, and writers toured designated cities conducting workshops offering tips on clothes, poise, cosmetics, and problem solving. Women who have attended these workshops say that Angelou's engagement with black middle-class women should not be trivialized, for through her example she was offering black women an opportunity to direct their talents toward achievable goals.

Her service to major institutions, along with her remarkable self-confidence as a speaker, opened many doors for Maya Angelou, especially in the area of public policy. She had long worn the cloak of wise woman and stateswoman—sometimes on daytime television with her close friend Oprah Winfrey; sometimes for organizations such as the Women's Foundation, which sold more than two thousand tickets when she spoke in San Francisco during the spring of 1997; and most often in college lecture halls, where seating was sold out long before the actual event. When Hilary Clinton was seeking the Democratic nomination for President of the United States in 2008, Angelou was a loyal supporter and spokesperson.

Her writing, above all
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
, has also been well received by an adolescent readership. A sample of the biographies about Angelou aimed at young audience is listed in the bibliography, under the heading “Biographies for Young Readers.” Because
The Iconic Muse
is primarily concerned with more scholarly viewpoints, these children's books do not enter the discussion. They are important, however, in assessing the scope of Angelou's appeal.

Maya Angelou occasionally indulged in unexpected flights of whimsy, aimed not at an academic or political audience but at a trendy clientele. She was notorious for having written the text for Hallmark greeting cards, many of which are in a file at the Schomburg Center. She also presumably endorsed other popular items that bore her face and her signature. In its toys and games division,
Amazon.com
offered during November of 2014 a Maya Angelou Portrait Jigsaw Puzzle. The 100-piece puzzle shows four different “scenes” from Angelou's career. Another product sold by Amazon in 2014 was a series of tile wall hangings, ranging in price from $8.45 to $18.49, with a choice of some of Angelou's famous quotes, for example, “I can be changed by what happens to me, but I refuse to be reduced by it.” For sale at the same venue were a “Still I Rise' black tee-shirt and an “I've learned” cell phone case for the Apple iPhone. I once walked out of a New York Barnes and Noble with my book purchases piled in a yellow plastic
bag graced with her image, clearly a Random House promotion. But I saw no listing in my Amazon search for my favorite piece of Maya/anna: a set of Maya Angelou wind chimes that my friend Carolyn Maun once gave me as a Christmas present.

In celebrating Maya Angelou's various achievements, the U.S. Postal Service issued a commemorative stamp in April 2015.The stamp featured a popular quotation that had frequently been attributed to Angelou: “A bird doesn't sing because it has an answer, it sings because it has a song.” Unfortunately, the Postal Service had failed to ascertain the authenticity of the quotation, which was actually from
A Cup of Sun
, a 1967 book by Joan Walsh Anglund. According to an article printed in the
New York Times
on April 9, 2015, the Postal Service will not be reissuing the stamp. It will remain in the hands of those faithful fans who pre-ordered it; and it will very likely be filed in the Maya Angelou Archives as a sad reminder of governmental blunder.

When I was in North Carolina in 1977, I had the opportunity to meet briefly with Sharon E. Snow, Curator of Rare Books at the Z. Smith Reynolds Library at Wake Forest University. Ms. Snow had already been making progress in providing access to Angelou's letters and manuscripts, as well as to the mountain of writings and video clips bearing her name.

Over the years a number of curators at Wake Forest have continued to compile Angelou's work in the performing arts. According to a document e-mailed to me on April 17, 2015, by Steven Fullwood of the Schomburg Center in Harlem, The Maya Angelou Film and Theater Collection in North Carolina consists of “30.61 feet 60 letter boxes, 10 oversized letter boxes, 1 half-letter box, 1 oversize folder.” The collection contains such treasures as the manuscript and notes for Angelou's 1974 play
Ajax
; a copy of the first feature film directed by Angelou,
Down on the Delta
(1998); and the program notes for a production of
Macbeth
directed by Angelou at Wake Forest in 1985. In 2014 the material was updated by Curator Kristin Weisse.

In 2010 a separate collection, the Maya Angelou Papers, was purchased by the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, part of the New York Public Library System. The Center houses an estimated total of 199 boxes consisting of “original manuscripts, computer generated typescripts, galleys and proofs” of Angelou's autobiographies and poetry as well as a huge file on her Inaugural poem and a file devoted to her correspondence with Rosa Guy, James Baldwin, Malcom X, and others (“Guide to the
Maya Angelou papers,” The New York Public Library Schomberg Center for Research in Black Culture, Manuscripts, Archives, and Rare Books Division,” n.d.). Soon after her death the Schomberg Center sponsored a public exhibit in her memory.

According to the staff, a substantial portion of the Angelou Papers is devoted to her fan mail; this file is unavailable to the public. In
Maya Angelou: The Iconic Muse
there are several references to the holdings of the Schomburg Center. The entire collection, except for the fan mail, awaits the scrutiny of critics with specialized skills in reading and collating the massive assortment of documents, letters, and original drafts available to them.

Chapter 2

The French word
genre
means a classification of literary works according to type—lyric, narrative, dramatic—which are further divided into novel, short story, epic poem, tragedy, and so forth. According to Meyer H. Abrams, genre is of use to the reader because it creates a set of “expectations that alter the way that a reader will interpret and respond to a particular work” (2005, 117). In other words, if the reader knows for a fact that Angelou's
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
is an autobiography, then the reader also expects the sequel,
Gather Together in My Name
, to have understandable characteristics of the genre, such as first-person narration, a chronological order, and an emphasis on the self.