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The memorial holds at Wake Forest University in North Carolina.
Angelou, aged 86, died on May 28, 2014 at her home in Winston-Salem after a long illness.
Angelou’s role in Nigeria’s struggle
for democracy during the sorcerer regime of Gen Sani Abacha will not be
forgotten.
In
a tribute, published by Sahara Reporters, the Nobel Laureate, Prof Wole Soyinka
writes:
Maya's 'AFRICA' was more than a mere
literary metaphor and reference point - it went beyond race identification. To
obtain a glimmering of what the continent meant to her, one would have to think
in terms of a mystic nostalgia.
That
could be because she was so markedly black-regal both in bearing and
pronouncements, she made one feel that, in some distant time past, she had been
a queen - a philosopher queen - over some part of the black continent. If
indeed she was, Maya was the down-to-earth kind who felt her subjects keenly, a
philosopher queen without the aloofness. It took just one lunch meeting with
her, and Queen Angelou tightened her sash like a market mamma, mobilized
emergency forces, and personally led the charge to beat down the doors of a
lethargic - and/or ambiguous - US administration during the Sanni Abacha
murderous dictatorship. She kept her finger on the nation's pulse throughout a
people's travails.
Long
before that however, what a personal memory to cherish! I learnt the
following at an American university where I had gone to lecture, and Maya
confirmed the details to me after we had finally met. Publishers of a
prestigious literary journal, the college was also sponsor of a bi-annual
international literary prize. She had nominated me for that prize but, finally,
it was a German writer who carried it off - I think it was Gunther Grass,
but am no longer sure. Well, at the formal event of the announcement, Maya
Angelou was so disappointed, she burst into tears. Our sole contact till then
was through our writing.
During
reception afterwards, when she was being teased/consoled or whatever, she said
something like: No, it's all right, I know he'll win a bigger one. A year
later, I was accorded the Nobel Prize.
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