![]() ![]() As a result of her travels, she became fluent in French, Italian, Spanish, Arabic and Fanti, a West African language. In 1961 she moved to Cairo, where she worked at the Arab Observer, and a few years later she went to Ghana to teach at the University of Ghana's School of Music and Drama. In the years that followed, her renewed zeal for life would take her and Guy to many countries throughout the world. In the late 1950s she moved to New York and took part in the Harlem Writers Guild and befriended literary greats such as James Baldwin, who later encouraged her to tell her story in Caged Bird. She became a celebrated calypso singer and dancer in a San Francisco cabaret. It was then that she gave herself what one might call a Maya manifest: She would live-fully. A few years later, when her grandmother died, the grief sent her reeling. In the aftermath of that trauma, 8-year-old Maya became mute and rarely opened her mouth to speak for several years. Louis in the mid-1930s, her mother's boyfriend stole her virginity. Louis in 1928, Maya moved to rural Stamps, Arkansas, to be with her grandmother after her parents split. She's the woman who can share my triumphs, chide me with hard truth and soothe me with words of comfort when I call her in my deepest pain. Now we have what I call a mother-sister-friend relationship. We talked as if we had known each other our entire lives and throughout my twenties and in the years beyond, Maya brought clarity to my life lessons. ![]() When we met in Baltimore more than 20 years ago, our bond was immediate. For the first time, as a young black girl, my experience was validated.Īnd it still is, only now I sit at Maya's feet, beside her fireplace, hardly believing that, years after reading Caged Bird, she is my mentor and close friend. Meeting Maya on those pages was like meeting myself in full. With each page, her life seemed to mirror mine: In her early years she was raised by her grandmother in the South as a young girl she was raped and, like me, she grew up reciting what the church folks called little pieces-a few lines from the Bible that were usually delivered amid shouts and amens from the women fanning themselves in the front pews. Since the moment I opened I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, I've felt deeply connected to Maya Angelou. The woman Oprah calls mentor-mother-sister-friend offers wise words about the roots of confidence, the trouble with modesty and how to do the impossible. The following is from her December 2000 issue of O, The Oprah Magazine. Editor's note: We were deeply saddened to learn of Dr.
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