At the time, Angelou’s voice already demanded attention. But her appearance, which led to a Grammy award for Best Spoken Word Album, reaffirmed her unique place in American culture. Throughout her 86 years, Angelou, who died Wednesday, both bore witness to and, through the power of her words, aided the nation’s reckoning with its awful racial history.
Some civil-rights trailblazers broke down legal barriers. Angelou broke down barriers of silence. In her famous memoir “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,” Angelou forced readers to reckon with the story of her own harrowing childhood in the segregated South. Born into poverty, she was raped at age 7 and grew up in the shadow of Jim Crow-era violence. She later worked at as a dancer, actress, singer, poet, and professor, and over her long career came into contact with Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr., Nelson Mandela, Billie Holiday, and James Baldwin. She helped organize the march in Memphis that drew King there in 1968, where he was assassinated on the day that was, coincidentally, Angelou’s own birthday. Grieving, Angelou refused to celebrate her birthday for years. But her voice helped move America toward the future that King envisioned.