'He, his dreams and my country will be in my thoughts tomorrow. And so will Coretta'

[bigtree]

The Scotsman
Edinburgh
04 April 2008

Today Maya Angelou will celebrate her birthday with a party in Florida, thrown by her close friend the talk-show host Oprah Winfrey. "It's going to be a surprise, but I love surprises," she http://www.news.scotsman.com/latestnews/39The-older-I-become-the.3947612.jp">says. "We all have that child in us, the one who wants to be a little afraid, but delighted. That's what a surprise is. You look forward to it with just a little trepidation." The day will have particularly poignancy for her, however, it also being the 40th anniversary of the death of her great friend Dr Martin Luther King Jr. For years after his assassination, she refused to celebrate her birthday, preferring instead to take the time to remember Dr King with his wife, Coretta. Until Coretta's death in 2006, each year on Angelou's birthday the two friends would talk on the telephone and send each other flowers.

"He, his dreams and my country will be in my thoughts tomorrow. And so will Coretta," she says. Were Dr King alive today, how does she think he might reflect on the progress made in terms of civil rights?

"I don't think he was impatient. I think he knew he had to do what he had to do while he was here," she says. "But you see, the idea of freedom, the thought of liberation, the concept of justice is so vast that I don't believe he thought it could have been achieved in ten years, or in 40 for that matter.

"I think he would hope that there would be some people carrying on and that we would be becoming better and better, and I think we are. Not as fast as we'd like to, not as fast as we need to, not as comprehensively as we must, but we are becoming better. The two front-runners to become president of this United States in the Democratic party are a white woman and a black man. You know that we've come a long way for each of them to be seriously considered."

Angelou has chosen to publicly voice her support for Hillary Clinton, a fact that she has joked about with Winfrey, who has chosen to back Barack Obama. She wasn't torn between supporting a woman and supporting a black man, she says, but rather has admired Clinton for years.

"While I respect Senator Obama, I've been watching Hillary Clinton for over 20 years, since she was the wife of the Governor of Arkansas," she says. "I saw how she carried herself. I said to myself then that if she ever runs for anything, I'm going to support her. I think Hillary Clinton would be the best president we could possibly have."

She insists that, despite her experiences and observations, she believes she still has much to learn and that at 80, life still presents very few answers. "I believe we sit around and preen and pretend to know something, but to tell you the truth I think we know very little," she says.

"We take on some answers and wear them and disclaim them and orate and carry on and let our voices rise and fall on some superficial wisdom. Or maybe, we know that love heals, but some people pretend they don't even know that. But the older I become, the less I know. I'll think I have an answer and then it flitters away on the morning breeze."


Happy 80th Birthday Maya! :party:




Maya Angelou smiles during an interview with the Associated Press Tuesday, March 4, 2008 in New York.

[TheDoorbellRang]

1. What a beautiful lady with a beautiful soul

Happy Birthday, Maya Angelou

[bigtree]

4. yes, she is

:toast:

[Forkboy]

2. Awesome...thanks for the breath of fresh air.

:thumbsup:

[bigtree]

3. .

:kick:

[bigtree]

5. kick . . .

:kick:

[bigtree]

6. Maya's excellent adventure — at age 80

"She has written that when the road ahead is blocked, and the one behind cut off, then a new path must be created. Angelou's life does not follow a straight, flat line, but takes detour upon detour, an ascending circle that covers rich and poor, city and country, art and commerce, shock and sentiment, Malcolm X and the good people of Hallmark Cards, Inc."

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/thearts/2004320223_zart02angelou.html

[Bonobo]

7. It sounds like she was describing Obama when she said:

""I don't think he was impatient. I think he knew he had to do what he had to do while he was here,""

[JohnnyLib2]

8. Thanks. It's worth thinking about the changes across the decades

of her life. Rec.

[bigtree]

10. so many people were directly or indirectly inspired by his life

. . . and impacted by his death, and by Coretta's as well.

[shugah]

9. happy birthday

maya angelou!

[tishaLA]

11. Maya at Coretta's funeral....just amazing

In the midst of national tumult, in the medium of international violent uproar, Coretta Scott King's face remained a study in serenity. In times of interior violent storms she sat, her hands resting in her lap calmly, like good children sleeping.

Her passion was never spent in public display. She offered her industry and her energies to action, toward righting ancient and current wrongs in this world.

She believed religiously in non-violent protest.

She believed it could heal a nation mired in a history of slavery and all its excesses.

She believed non-violent protest religiously could lift up a nation rife with racial prejudices and racial bias.

She was a quintessential African-American woman, born in the small town repressive South, born of flesh and destined to become iron, born -- born a cornflower and destined to become a steel magnolia.


She loved her church fervently. She loved and adored her husband and her children. She cherished her race. She cherished women. She cared for the conditions of human beings, of native Americans and Latin -- Latinos and Asian Americans. She cared for gay and straight people. She was concerned for the struggles in Ireland, and she prayed for nightly for Palestine and equally for Israel.

I speak as a -- a sister of a sister. Dr. Martin Luther King was assassinated on my birthday. And for over 30 years, Coretta Scott King and I have telephoned, or sent cards to each other, or flowers to each other, or met each other somewhere in the world.

We called ourselves "chosen sisters" and when we traveled to South Africa or to the Caribbean or when she came to visit me in North Carolina or in New York, we sat into the late evening hours, calling each other "girl." It's a black woman thing, you know. And even as we reached well into our 70th decade, we still said "girl."

I stand here today for her family -- which is my family -- and for my family and all the other families in the world who would want to be here, but could not be here. I have beside me up here millions of people who are living and standing straight and erect, and knowing something about dignity without being cold and aloof, knowing something about being contained without being unapproachable -- people who have learned something from Coretta Scott King.

I stand here for Eleanor Traylor and for Harry Belafonte, and I stand here for Winnie Mandela. I stand here for women and men who loved her -- "Dinky" Romilly. On those late nights when Coretta and I would talk, I would make her laugh. And she said that Martin King used to tell her, "You don't laugh enough." And there's a recent book out about sisters in which she spoke about her blood sister. But at the end of her essay, she said, I did have -- "I do have a chosen sister, Maya Angelou, who makes me laugh even when I don't want to." And it's true. I told her some jokes only for no-mixed company.

Many times on those late after -- evenings she would say to me, "Sister, it shouldn't be an 'either-or', should it? Peace and justice should belong to all people, everywhere, all the time. Isn't that right?" And I said then and I say now, "Coretta Scott King, you're absolutely right. I do believe that peace and justice should belong to every person, everywhere, all the time."

And those of us who gather here, principalities, presidents, senators, those of us who run great companies, who know something about being parents, who know something about being preachers and teachers -- those of us, we owe something from this minute on; so that this gathering is not just another footnote on the pages of history. We owe something.

I pledge to you, my sister, I will never cease.

I mean to say I want to see a better world.

I mean to say I want to see some peace somewhere.

I mean to say I want to see some honesty, some fair play.

I want to see kindness and justice. This is what I want to see and I want to see it through my eyes and through your eyes, Coretta Scott King.



Thank you. American Rhetoric