I don’t believe men and women are equal beings. However, I believe equal opportunities should be established for men and women in both education and in the work force.
Am I the only person tired of living in a man’s world? I want to live in a world which belongs to both men and women, a world which belongs to everyone.
It’s been over a month now and our girls have still not been rescued. Recently, I had an unpleasant conversation with a middle aged man. He said and I quote, ‘It has been too long since our girls have been taken and the atrocities those men must have done to them is unimaginable therefore I don’t think they should be found.’ I was a spitting ball of fire after he said this. God forbid those paedophiles do what they know how to do best, does that mean that it’s the end? That those girls have nothing else to offer and we should all give up? Of course not!
A story which has greatly inspired me is that of Maya Angelou. Despite the barriers that tried to silence her, she rose above it all and shone as one of the brightest stars this world has ever seen.
Born on April 4th, 1928, in St. Louis, Missouri, Dr. Angelou was raised in St. Louis and Stamps, Arkansas. In Stamps, Dr. Angelou experienced the brutality of racial discrimination, but she also absorbed the unshakable faith and values of traditional African-American family, community, and culture. Her parents got divorced when she was only three years old. She and her elder brother were sent to their paternal grandmother who was at that time a flourishing store owner. This must have brought a bit of stability to Maya and her brother however, her father came four years later with no prior notice and took the children to their mother. It was at this time Maya got raped at the tender age of 8 by her mother’s boyfriend. Distraught, she told her brother who in turn reported to the rest of the family. The rapist was prosecuted, found guilty and released after just one day in prison. Four days later he was found dead, probably murdered by Maya’s uncles. After this ordeal, Maya was mute for the next four years as a result of the traumatic experience and both she and her brother were sent back to live with their grandmother once again. Here, a family friend helped her speak again and also introduced her to authors that later affected her life and career. Dr. Angelou’s love for the arts won her a scholarship to study dance and drama at San Francisco’s Labor School. At 14, she dropped out to become San Francisco’s first African-American female cable car conductor. She later finished high school, giving birth to her son, Guy, a few weeks after graduation. As a young single mother, she supported her son by working a variety of jobs that included nightclub dancer, Creole cook, paint remover at a dent and body shop amongst other things. However her passion for music, dance, performance, and poetry would soon took centre stage.
In 1954 and 1955, Dr. Angelou toured Europe with a production of the opera Porgy and Bess. She studied modern dance with Martha Graham, danced with Alvin Ailey on television variety shows and, in 1957, recorded her first album, Calypso Lady. In 1958, she moved to New York, where she joined the Harlem Writers Guild, acted in the historic Off-Broadway production of Jean Genet’s The Blacks and wrote and performed Cabaret for Freedom.
In 1960, Dr. Angelou moved to Cairo, Egypt where she served as editor of the English language weekly The Arab Observer. The next year, she moved to Ghana where she taught at the University of Ghana’s School of Music and Drama, worked as feature editor for The African Review and wrote for The Ghanaian Times.
During her years abroad, Dr. Angelou read and studied voraciously, mastering French, Spanish, Italian, Arabic and the West African language Fanti. While in Ghana, she met with Malcolm X and, in 1964, returned to America to help him build his new Organization of African American Unity.
Shortly after her arrival in the United States, Malcolm X was assassinated, and the organization dissolved. Soon after X’s assassination, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. asked Dr. Angelou to serve as Northern Coordinator for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. King’s assassination, falling on her birthday in 1968, left her devastated.
With the guidance of her friend, the novelist James Baldwin, she began work on the book that would become I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. Published in 1970, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings was published to international acclaim and enormous popular success. The list of her published verse, non-fiction, and fiction now includes more than 30 bestselling titles.
A trailblazer in film and television, Dr. Angelou wrote the screenplay and composed the score for the 1972 film Georgia, Georgia. Her script, the first by an African American woman ever to be filmed, was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize.
She continues to appear on television and in films including the landmark television adaptation of Alex Haley’s Roots (1977) and John Singleton’s Poetic Justice (1993). In 1996, she directed her first feature film, Down in the Delta. In 2008, she composed poetry for and narrated the award-winning documentary The Black Candle, directed by M.K. Asante.
Dr. Angelou has served on two presidential committees, was awarded the Presidential Medal of Arts in 2000, the Lincoln Medal in 2008, and has received 3 Grammy Awards. President Clinton requested that she compose a poem to read at his inauguration in 1993. Dr. Angelou’s reading of her poem “On the Pulse of the Morning” was broadcast live around the world.
Dr. Angelou has received over 50 honorary degrees and is Reynolds Professor of American Studies at Wake Forest University.
We must note that it took the kind interference of a family friend to fuel Dr Angelou’s creative passion, which lead to her accomplishing greater things. No doubt this unfortunate ordeal has traumatized our girls, but we must not be cast down because a lot of good could come from this upon their return. To survive this wicked ordeal, they are strong women but they need our help. We must help them recover and show them the light at the end of the tunnel.
‘’You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated. In fact, it may be necessary to encounter the defeats, so you can know who you are, what you can rise from, how you can still come out of it.’’ – Maya Angelou.
Oluwaseyi Lawal
