Julian Vasquez Heilig here recalls some of the words of Maya Angelou, one of our nation’s greatest writers. She was born in 1928 in St. Louis, raised in Stamps, Arkansas, and died at her home in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
I met this great woman once, when she spoke at the 100th anniversary dinner of the New York Public Library. She said that the beauty of the public library was that its great treasure of books belonged to the public and its doors were open to all, without exception.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
RIP, Maya Angelou, April 4, 1928 – May 28, 2014
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2013/10/22/top-authors-including-maya-angelou-urge-obama-to-curb-standardized-testing/
“It is time for parents to teach young people early on that in diversity there is beauty and there is strength.”
–Maya Angelou
Remember what Maya Angelou said the next time someone tells you that we need one set of one-size-fits-all, invariant, inflexible “standards” and standardized tests for every child, the next time someone tells you that our educational decisions should be made by a centralized Common Core Curriculum Commissariat and Ministry of Truth, the next time you encounter some Educrat or Edupundit or Politician serving as a Vichy collaborator with those who want to force upon us one ring to rule them all.
“n diversity there is beauty and strength”
Ecologies are healthier than are monocultures.
We shall miss you, Maya.
Thank you for being that inspiration, that courage grubber and prod, to so many.
Beautiful! Maya, you will be missed by so many people. You wrote and spoke the words of love and peace from your heart. Words that so many of us find it difficult to write.
Thank you, Mary. That means a lot to me. Very saddened by the loss of this wonderful person.
Requiescat in pace wonderful Maya….
Recall what started as a talk and became a full stage performance with voice ranging from solemn rolling thunder to jazz singer to silly girly. Content, autobiography.
awesome
Mike Klonsky posted this Maya Angelou quote on his blog today:
“Find a beautiful piece of art. If you fall in love with Van Gogh or Matisse or John Oliver Killens, or if you fall love with the music of Coltrane, the music of Aretha Franklin, or the music of Chopin – find some beautiful art and admire it, and realize that that was created by human beings just like you, no more human, no less.” — Note to self
Maya Angelou was an amazing, talented and compassionate woman.
I had the privilege of seeing her at various locations and she always was so inspiring.
My deepest sympathy to her family. She will be missed by many.
I first met Maya Angelou when she was interviewed by Bill Moyers, I believe in his World of Ideas, at any rate, one of his early shows. A GREAT human being. What a childhood! What humongous adversities that she had to overcome. She will be sorely missed. Our culture now seems on the whole not to value poetry, beauty, and even humanity in its best ideals and it will have lost one of its great advocates.
Yes, May flights of angels carry her to her rest.
“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
― Maya Angelou
Until today, I didn’t realize she was the author of these words, but those very words guided my contact with children during my teaching career. Thank you Maya Angelou.
If only we could get those fools who believe feelings don’t matter, to think about these very wise words.
“Out of the cradle endlessly rocking,
Out of the mocking-bird’s throat, the musical shuttle,
Out of the Ninth-month midnight,
Over the sterile sands and the fields beyond, where the child
leaving his bed wander’d alone, bareheaded, barefoot,
Down from the shower’d halo,
Up from the mystic play of shadows twining and twisting as if they were alive,”
[…]
From the opening of Walt Whitman’s “Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking” (LEAVES OF GRASS).
Has it come to this with all the schemes of the self-styled “education reformers”—What good is poetry? What purpose does it serve?
Might as well ask what’s the point of being human, of being alive.
R.I.P. Maya Angelou.
Most beautiful krazy props.
😭
Thanks for the words of Whitman, TA…..love Leaves of Grass. Maya Angelou spoke of the black ethos so beautifully, but as we reread her poetry, we see she truly spoke for us all.
An extraordinary woman who shared remarkable gifts & insights with human kind.
We have lost a treasure, but her words will live on in our hearts, in our memory, and in our books. I can hear her voice even now.
Please look at David Frost – Maya Angelou interview. He says to her, “You are only ten percent of the population…” Listen to her beautiful and profound answer…
I have searched for this without success. Do you have a link?
Maya Angelou was deeply involved with a charter school in Washington DC that carried her name (with her permission). Here’s a discussion of how she returned a number of times to help the students and the school:
http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2014/6/maya-angelou-charterschoolwashingtondc.html