And Still I Rise

“Life loves the person who dares to live it,” says Maya Angelou in the recently released documentary, Maya Angelou: And Still I Rise.

This is the first film to document the life of Maya Angelou.  Growing up in rural Arkansas, working as a dancer, singer, writer, director, poet, actor she became a powerful voice of truth in the world.  She worked with Martin Luther King and Malcolm X during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960`s.  

Malcolm  X and Maya Angelou

Maya Angelou and Barak Obama

She was part of the Harlem Writers Guild with Langston Hughes.  She was invited by Bill Clinton to write and recite a poem (On the Pulse of the Morning) for his inauguration.  The US government commissioned her to write a poem for the United States on the occasion of Nelson Mandela`s death (His Day is Done).  She also received the highest honour for Americans from Barak Obama.

Maya Angelou reading On the Pulse of the Morning at the Inauguration of Bill Clinton

Co-directors Bob Hercules and Rita Coburn Whack spent four years making the film.  For the first two, Dr. Angelou was alive and she participated in three lengthy interviews with the filmmakers. They also found archival footage and interviewed other people in her life such as Diahann Carroll, Cicely Tyson, Lou Gossett Jr., Oprah Winfrey, Bill and Hilary Clinton and Guy B. Johnson, Angelou’s son.

In an interview at the Sundance Film Festival, Rita Whack said that Angelou was able to rise above racism, sexism and sexual abuse.  “She told the story and made us all aware,” said the director.  This became the theme for the movie and they wanted that to be her legacy to the next generation.

What struck me throughout the film was that Maya Angelou was a woman who said “yes” to life over and over again.  A woman who dared to love, who dared to make mistakes and forgive herself and a woman who had the courage to speak her truth. You can get a taste of this in the trailer.

As we left the theatre after the film, I felt taller somehow.  I wanted to stand up straight and meet life eye to eye.  I felt better about myself as a human being.  As my companions and I made our way to the exit we were stopped by an older woman who wanted to tell us about her experience meeting Maya Angelou in California a number of years ago.  She explained that she had her picture taken with Dr. Angelou who was very tall and how she treasures that picture.  She explained why this remarkable woman had COPD, a lung disease often caused by smoking, saying that she was a registered nurse so she noticed the cigarette in one of the archival pictures in the film.  The woman spoke quickly, with a Caribbean accent and recounted the story again as if she could hardly believe that she had stood beside this phenomenal woman.  She was bursting with the story and had chosen us to tell it to.

I reached out and touched her hand.  “Now I`ve touched someone who touched Maya Angelou,” I said.  I`ve heard that we are connected to everyone in the world by six degrees of separation but here was just three degrees of separation.  We were just going to leave when the woman`s friend appeared and she introduced us to her.  We stood in a circle and took turns speaking about what the movie and its star, meant to us as if we were old friends.  I remembered Maya Angelou saying that when one human achieves something great, then we are all elevated by that.  I shared this with my new friends. 

Maya Angelou passed away in 2014, eighty-six years after she was born.  But to this group of black and white woman in the lobby of a theatre in Toronto, she was alive.  She connected us, made us proud to be women and gave us the courage to reach out to one another.  Her spirit and legacy lived on as we embodied her message of respect and inclusivity.

As my companions and I walked away down Bloor Street, we marveled at the experience of sharing with these now friends, at the expansion of reaching out beyond our own boundaries even in the heart of a big city.  I could feel Maya Angelou`s wide beautiful smile beaming down on us.

     I note the obvious differences¸

     between each sort and type,

     but we are more alike, my friends,

     than we are unalike.
              -- Maya Angelou

From Human Family, I Shall Not Be Moved1990  Random House: Toronto