159
178 160
179 161
180 162
181 163
182 164
183 165
184 166
185 167
186 168
187 169
188 170
189 171
190 172
191 173
192 174
193 175
194 176
195 177
196 178
197 179
198 180
199 181
200 182
201 183
202 184
203 185
204 186
205 187
206 188
207 189
208 190
209 191
210 192
211 193
212 194
213 195
214 196
215 197
216 198
217 199
218 200
219 201
220 202
Acknowledgements
I am grateful to the Maya Angelou archives at both the Z. Reynolds Smith Library, Wake Forest University, and the Schomberg Collection for Research in Black Lives, New York. My thanks to Haaris Naqui, who encouraged my academic book on Angelou, and to Richard Bradford and Nicole Allen whose series of literary biographies this book represents. I am particularly grateful to the poet and photographer Eugene B. Redmond for allowing me to use his excellent photos. I owe thanks, too, to earlier Angelou critics: Mary Jane Lupton, Marcia Ann Gillespie, Rosa Johnson Butler, Richard A. Long, Tony Bolden, Selwyn R. Cudjoe, Joanne M. Braxton, Jacqueline S. Thursby, Jeffrey M. Elliot, Margaret Courtney-Clarke, Lyman B. Hagen, Dolly A. McPherson, Cheryl A. Wall, Eleanor Traylor, Claudia Tate, Wallis Tinnie, Karla Holloway, Valerie Baisnee, Carol E. Neubauer, Tavis Smiley, Mildred Mickle, and others.
The only collection of Angelou’s poetry used is The Complete Poetry (2015). All references to Maya Angelou’s autobiographies refer to The Collected Autobiographies. The Notes refer to abbreviated titles in the Bibliography.
Illustrations
Maya Angelou delivering the Inaugural poem, “On the Pulse Of Morning” at the William Jefferson Clinton Inauguration January, 1993.
Source: Photo by Sharon Farmer. Reproduced by permission of William J. Clinton Presidential Library.
William Jefferson Clinton congratulating Maya Angelou at his Inauguration.
Maya Angelou at Rollins College, Winter Park, Florida, after having received an honorary doctor of letters degree.
Maya Angelou as a fellow at the Rockefeller Institute in Bellagio, on Lake Como, Liguria, Italy, autumn of 1975
Villa Serbelloni on the hillside above Lake Como
Maya Angelou with her sister writers Rosa Guy and Louise Meriwether on one of their sojourns together in North Carolina. Photo © by poet Eugene Redmond. Used by permission of Eugene B. Redmond.
Rita Dove, Toni Morrison, and Maya Angelou at the latter’s party celebrating Toni Morrison’s being awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, 1993. Winter, 1994. Photo © by Eugene Redmond. Used by permission of Eugene B. Redmond.
Holograph copy of Maya Angelou’s important, and often-circulated, statement, A Pledge to Rescue Our Youth. Written for the Essence Music Festival in 2006, this document has been widely circulated by community and church groups ever since.
Coretta Scott King
