Maya Angelou Quotes
It's good to remember that in crises, natural crises, human beings forget for awhile their ignorances, their biases, their prejudices. For a little while, neighbors help neighbors and strangers help strangers.
Angelou, Maya. Conversations with Maya Angelou. Edited by Jeffrey M. Elliot, University Press of Mississippi, 1989.
There were few reformers who had such a long, extensive, and activist career in both England and India. She began her career as a minister’s wife but was literally turned out of her house by her husband for whom she was not religiously orthodox enough. This started her religious activism which ended with her as an atheist. She led a match-girl’s strike, founded a Hindu college in India, and was even arrested for pornography in England when she wrote a book advocating birth control. She is on many lists of “Great Indians” along with Gandhi and Nehru. She was Jiddu Krishnamurti’s teacher.
Sullivan was the first political ward boss in America. His ward was the Bowery and Lower East Side of New York City. He served on term in Congress and although he could have served as long as he wished, he found it very distasteful and went back to being a New York State Senator and running his ward where he controlled everything that had to do with politics, government services and even crime. His ward consisted of Irish, Italians, Jews and Chinese whose commonality is that there were all poor immigrants of first generation Americans.
Maya Angelou was an American poet, memoirist, and civil rights activist. She published seven autobiographies, three books of essays, several books of poetry, and is credited with a list of plays, movies, and television shows spanning over 50 years. She received dozens of awards and more than 50 honorary degrees. Angelou is best known for her series of seven autobiographies, which focus on her childhood and early adult experiences. The first, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969), tells of her life up to the age of 17 and brought her international recognition and acclaim.