This is more than just your daily dose of sadness. The poet, writer, and prominent civil rights activist who changed the world, Maya Angelou, has passed away. She reportedly died in Winston-Salem, North Carolina at the age of 86.
Angelou was the author of iconic novel, “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” among a dozen other books of poetry, a memoir, and short stories. Her books often centered on themed such as racism, identity, family, and travel. Her works have been taught in schools throughout the country despite battles to get them banned or removed.
In the civil rights movement, she worked with Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X.
Since the 1990s she made around eighty appearances a year on the lecture circuit, something she continued into her eighties. In 1993, Angelou recited her poem “On the Pulse of Morning” at President Bill Clinton’s inauguration, the first poet to make an inaugural recitation since Robert Frost at John F. Kennedy’s inauguration in 1961.
