On the recordMay 30, 2014
I come to the floor this afternoon to say a few words in tribute to the great Maya Angelou, who just this week died at 86 years of age. Mine will be one of, truly, millions of tributes that have begun. President Obama said of Maya that she helped generations of Americans ``find their rainbows amidst the clouds and that she inspired the rest of us to be our best selves.'' I think many would agree with that. Attorney General Holder named one of his daughters ``Maya'' after Maya Angelou. We have a charter school here in the District of Columbia named for her. She visited that school. That is the kind of woman she was. It is almost impossible to describe this life, all 86 years of it. She drew from it all that you can draw from one life. Yes, we know her, perhaps, best as a poet and as a writer and as, some would say, an autobiographer because most of her writing comes from her own life in successive memoirs, in successive autobiographies, but much of her fame came when she was middle age and beyond. Until that time, she embarked on a far-flung career wherever it would take her, dancer--yes, dancer--singer, composer, actress. She was Hollywood's first Black female director, but she was most devoted to the printed word as an essayist, as a playwright, as a poet; and that came out of her own love of books, of words. Maya Angelou was active until the end of those 86 years.…
