maya angelou letter to my daughter summary

She first thrilled the world with I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969). She was given the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Obama and was honoured by more than seventy universities throughout the world. She wrote and performed a poem, 'On the Pulse of Morning', for President Clinton on his inauguration.

Born 4 April 1928, she lived and chronicled an extraordinary life: rising from poverty, violence and racism, she became a renowned author, memoirist, poet, playwright, civil rights' activist - working with Malcolm X and Martin Luther King. What I Know Now features more contributions by such extraordinary women as Madeleine Albright, Roz Chast, and Ingrid Newkirk.Maya Angelou was one of the world's most important writers and activists. Two years later, in 2008, Angelou would revisit the theme of home and belonging in her breathtaking letters to the daughter she never had. You’ll make a practice of going home so she can liberate you again - one of the greatest gifts, along with nurturing your courage, that she will give you. Your mother will pamper you and feed you your favorite meal of red beans and rice. But only for two or three weeks at a time. You will go home again when the world knocks you down - or when you fall down in full view of the world. In every relationship you make, you’ll have to show readiness to adjust and make adaptations.

When you walk out of my door, don’t let anybody raise you - you’ve been raised. You’re going to leave your mother’s big comfortable house and she won’t stop you, because she knows you too well.

You don’t want anybody telling you what time you have to be in at night or how to raise your baby. The theme of home and belonging is central to Angelou’s work - to her spirit - and is also at the heart of her beautiful contribution to Ellyn Spragins’s 2006 anthology What I Know Now: Letters to My Younger Self ( public library), which also gave us Naomi Wolf’s spectacular no-bullshit letter to her younger self. “You only are free when you realize you belong no place - you belong every place - no place at all,” the late and great Maya Angelou (April 4, 1928–May 28, 2014) told Bill Moyers in their extraordinary 1973 conversation.

Maya angelou letter to my daughter summary