“The poems and stories she wrote and read to us in her commanding voice were gifts of wisdom and wit, courage and grace,” Clinton said in a statement.Īngelou’s close friend television icon Oprah Winfrey spoke of Angelou’s “unshakeable calm, confidence and fierce grace.” President Barack Obama led the tributes, hailing Angelou as “one of the brightest lights of our time – a brilliant writer, a fierce friend, and a truly phenomenal woman.”įormer President Bill Clinton, who invited Angelou to give a reading at his 1993 inauguration, said America had “lost a national treasure.” She was a warrior for equality, tolerance and peace,” he said. “She lived a life as a teacher, activist, artist and human being. Her son Guy Johnson said his mother “passed quietly in her home” in Winston-Salem, North Carolina and expressed thanks that “her ascension was not belaboured by a loss of acuity or comprehension.” She was 86.Īngelou was best known for the first installment of her memoirs “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,” the first non-fiction best-seller by an African-American woman.Ī friend of slain civil rights hero Martin Luther King, she was widely respected in the United States and abroad as a strong voice for both black people and women. WASHINGTON: Maya Angelou, the beloved African-American author and civil rights activist renowned for a searing memoir charting her childhood in the racially segregated South, died Wednesday.
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