Renowned author Maya Angelou got a send-off Saturday worthy of a head of state, with moving remembrances from Michelle Obama, Bill Clinton and a weeping Oprah Winfrey.
“Maya Angelou spoke to the essence of black women,” the first lady said at the service at Wake Forest University. “She celebrated black women’s beauty when no one had dared to before … She taught us it was okay to be your regular old self.”
Angelou — best known for her autobiographical “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” and who spoke at Clinton’s inauguration in 1993 — died two weeks ago in North Carolina at the age of 86.
Clinton, who grew up in Arkansas about 20 miles from where “Caged Bird” was set, described how Angelou touched him through her seminal work.
“I knew about the people she was talking about. I knew about the problems she was documenting,” he said. “Her great gift to us was calling attention to all the things she was paying attention to. The ‘Caged Bird’ was the first manifestation of her great gift.”
An emotional Winfrey described the poet as “my spiritual queen mother.”
“The loss I feel I cannot describe. It’s like nothing I’ve ever felt before,” she said. “Rarely did we have a phone conversation where I wasn’t taking notes. I was a devoted student.”
