Lessons from a Master Teacher:
Expressions of
Enduring Gratitude for the Life and Legacy of
Dr. Maya Angelou – Part One
“A mighty tree has fallen.”
That sagacious and enduring African proverb honors the passing of an
elder and griot whose physical absence resounds throughout the village. Just as
the sound of a falling oak, sequoia or fir reverberates in the forest, the loss
of a literary giant, Dr. Maya Angelou, deeply affects the hearts and minds of
countless millions of citizens in the global village who learned from her poetry,
novels and literary criticism. Her
personal pilgrimage from the brutality of rape at seven years of age through
paralyzing silence to completing her earthly journey as a recipient of the
Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor in the United States,
further inspires nameless, average persons.
Spanning her humble origins in segregated Arkansas on 4 April 1928 and
her formative years in St. Louis, Missouri to periods of residence on the
continent of Africa and ending 28 May 2014 in Winston-Salem, North Carolina
where she taught on the faculty of the prestigious Wake Forest University, Maya
Angelou’s impressive Pan-African life, personally powerful legacy and
intriguing myriad experiences connect African-American, Caribbean and native
continental segments of the African Diaspora.
Conversant with her brothers and sisters of each major
component of the Diaspora, she encouraged and empowered various cultural,
linguistic and ethnic strands of people of African descent to appreciate their
interrelatedness and interdependence within the global community. As griot to the Diaspora, she taught her
racially monolithic yet experientially and existentially diverse community to
find self-acceptance and self-love in the nuances of being a Black person. Cosmopolitan in the genuine sense, she
transcended the stark limitations of her origins; she equally resisted the
comfort and familiarity of bourgeois culture in America. Thereby, she proactively forged an identity
that enabled her to speak to all neighbors in the global village. Her seminal poem, “On the Pulse of the
Morning,” delivered for the first time on the occasion of President Clinton’s
First Inauguration, enduringly demonstrates her inimitable ability to translate
a Pan African perspective to the world.
She challenges the nation and world to see personhood, worth, dignity
and respect in each person as you greet someone with a sincere “Good
morning.” In so doing, everyone affirms
and accepts himself or herself.
In many ways, Dr. Angelou was just an average person who overcame
formidable obstacles. Her fame emerged
as an outcome of her steadfast spirit.
The tragedies of her formative years are far too common for many people. She lived down a brutal rape and seven-year
period of substantial silence, shame and self-blame. She harbored untold and unspeakable guilt for
the “mob justice” and wanton retribution that necessitated the murder of her
rapist. Her silence became an ironic
period of compassion for her victimizer.
Had she not said anything, he would have lived longer; quite possibly,
he eventually would have met a similar fate as he was bound to repeat his
dastardly deed. Her voice saved other
girls! Equally, her silence became a
cocoon which defined, developed and nurtured one of the most important
American, African American and woman voices in the twentieth century.
Her life teaches the definite probability of healing that
awaits victims of trauma who courageously confront their fearful and foreboding
experiences. Dr. Angelou refused
consistently throughout her life to be a victim. Her period of silence prevented the
petrification of her victimization. Her
story contains many powerful motivations and encouraging and empowering examples
for any average person. She became a
college professor though she did not earn a doctorate degree. She maintained her quest for love and romance
despite several challenging relationships.
Using writing as a cathartic, therapeutic and healing mechanism, she
became an international bestselling author.
Notwithstanding Dr. Angelou’s humble origins, she transcended
provincialism in her appeal to an international audience. She fostered inner resources and abilities to
overcome the psychological wreckage and fierce adversity of her formative
years. Her acquisition of celebrity did
not spoil her authenticity or contaminate her personality. Dr. Angelou rebuffed affectations thereby
remaining an average, approachable and accessible person. Her humility and genuineness enabled her to
gain the respect of younger generations.
Literary critics, scholars of literature and historians undoubtedly will
study her body of work for decades to come.
Their analyses will not compare with the transformative epiphanies which
average people will experience when they read her work and learn from her
unique and powerful human experience.
Chief among these lessons will be her powerful example relating to
conquering fear in daily living.
Within Dr. Angelou’s stimulating and inspiring collection of
writings, three works particularly empower me: I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, The Heart of a Woman and “On the Pulse of the Morning.” Her first installment of a five-volume
autobiography contains several vivid and realistic church scenes. Reading them mystically transports me back to
the milieu of the African-American Southern church, “The Black Church,” a
setting in where I was reared and for which I hold lifelong endearing
reflections and heartfelt devotion. On
the first Sunday of each month, regardless of where I happen to be, I travel
through the corridors of my personal history to New Zion AME Church in Wisacky,
South Carolina where I brilliantly see the celebration of The Lord’s
Supper. I hear the celebrant’s rhythmic recitation
of the “Second Collect” as he recounts Christ’s indescribable and illimitable
sacrificial gift of His life as a propitiation for the totality of humankind’s
sin. I join in the jubilant singing of
the Senior Choir adorned with white robes and red stoles. Rather than digressing to the naiveté of my
formative years, I retreat to an enduring comfort and compassion of a ritual in
my childhood church where theological arguments and life’s myriad
inconsistencies could not contaminate my exuberance. As I am conversant with the Southern Black
Church culture and its prophetic, accommodationist, bourgeois and rural,
“country,” iterations, Angelou’s writings equate with spiritual comfort food for
my soul. They empower me to persevere
despite life’s myriad mysteries, adversities and experiences.
Moreover, the caged bird sings about freedom. He realizes that life offers more to him than
confinement. Autobiographically, Angelou
employs this powerful literary motif to narrate retrospectively her heartfelt
desire to surmount myopia, provincialism and paralyzing limitations in her
trauma and formative years. She rebukes
the predominant orthodoxy of an atavistic view of African American segregated
communities. Chances are “the good ol’
days” were not as pleasant as enduring romanticists claim. Black men were subject to lynch mobs whenever
they spontaneously formed. Black
children were denied full educational access.
Black teachers taught with very limited resources though Black communities
paid their fair share of taxes.
Nonetheless, Angelou encourages readers to let their minds, hearts and
souls sing freely and openly as they serve God through concrete service to
humankind. Thereby, they actualize the unique
life which their Creator graciously and generously gives.
