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Oprah Winfrey paid tribute to Maya Angelou on what would've been the iconic poet and civil rights activist’s 95th birthday on 3 April.
“Maya would have been 95 today – and I would be throwing her a BIG party, as I did every 5th year since she turned 60,” the media mogul wrote on Instagram along with a throwback snap of the two together.
Oprah, who first met the literary legend when she was a young reporter back in the 1970s, says Maya was a huge role model for her growing up.
“I grew up reading her insightful books and memorising her poems,” the 69-year-old wrote.
Oprah has previously revealed when she first read Maya’s 1969 autobiography, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, she felt that, “Meeting Maya on those pages was like meeting myself in full. For the first time, as a young black girl, my experience was validated.”
She finally got to meet her heroine in her late 70s while working as a young reporter. “She made me a meal and read me Paul Laurence Dunbar poetry.”
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From then on, Oprah says she “listened to her words of wisdom for years” and they became firm friends.
Amongst Maya’s most memorable quotes, Oprah says, were these: “When people tell you who they are, believe them – the FIRST time”; “When you know better, you do better”; and “When you learn, teach. When you get, give.”
Oprah concluded her post by saying her late friend’s spirit “abides in me”.
While interviewing Maya in 2010, Oprah called her a “mentor-mother-sister-friend”.
When Maya turned 70, Oprah rented a cruise ship for her and 150 of their closest friends and they visited the Mayan ruins in Mexico.
In another interview in 2013, Oprah asked Maya what she'd say to a younger version of herself and the poet replied, “I would encourage her to forgive. It’s one of the greatest gifts you can give yourself, to forgive.”
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Maya was a singer, dancer, actress and Hollywood’s first female black director. However, she rose to prominence for her writing and civil rights activism.
Over the years she published seven autobiographies (the first, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, in 1969), three books of essays, several books of poetry, and is credited with a list of plays, movies and TV shows spanning more than 50 years. She also received dozens of awards and more than 50 honorary degrees.
She worked for Dr Martin Luther King and Malcolm X, and served on two presidential committees: for Gerald Ford in 1975 and for Jimmy Carter in 1977. President Bill Clinton awarded her the Presidential Medal of the Arts in 2000.
A decade later, in 2011, President Barack Obama awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Sources: dailymail.co.uk, poetryfoundation.org, flavorwire.com
