Remembering Maya Angelou

I heard the sad news about Maya Angelou’s death at age 86 the day after I took a German friend (who’d been a high school exchange student with us about a decade ago) to Cincinnati, Ohio, to visit the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center. In the gift shop there, I bought the Complete Collected Poems of Maya Angelou. I had other books by her but not that one. It seems extraordinary that she was much on my mind at just this time.

A few years ago I worked with a co-editor on an anthology project titled Why Civic Education Matters, published by the Center for Civic Education (http://new.civiced.org/). To include an essay by Maya Angelou in the book, my co-editor Greg Bernstein conducted an interview with the busy author and sent me the transcript. My task was to take the raw material and craft an essay. The challenge, which I quite enjoyed, was to capture the essence of Maya Angelou’s responses and transform them into a coherent narrative, all the while being sensitive to her unique voice. I have to assume that when she was shown the edited work, she was satisfied.

Prior to developing the anthology, of course, I had gained an advantage by having seen Maya Angelou in films and on television. I had heard that wonderful, distinctive voice many times. Best of all, I had the pleasure of seeing her in person when she spoke at the Indiana University Auditorium. That particular evening was nothing short of magical. Maya Angelou at 80-plus years of age held a standing-room-only audience of more than 3,000 totally enthralled for an hour and a half. She talked, read, recited, sang, and even danced her way into the hearts of everyone present. It was an evening I’ll never forget.