Famed Poet Coming to Butler
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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowMaya Angelou is scheduled to appear at Butler University. She will be the featured presenter next month during the school's Diversity Lecture Series. August 14, 2013
News Release
INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. – Maya Angelou will open Butler University's 2013-2014 Celebration of Diversity Distinguished Lecture Series at 7:30 p.m. Sept. 25 at Clowes Memorial Hall.
A limited number of tickets will be available to the public beginning at 10 a.m. Sept. 9 at the Clowes Hall box office and through Ticketmaster (fees apply).
Although all the tickets are likely to be distributed in advance, those who don't get them may line up outside Clowes Hall the night of the event. Open seats will be released to those without tickets at 7:15 p.m. that day. Tickets for her previously scheduled visits, which were postponed due to weather and illness, will not be honored.
Angelou, who inaugurated the diversity series in 1988, is one of the most renowned and influential voices of our time. Hailed as a global renaissance woman, she is a celebrated poet, memoirist, novelist, educator, dramatist, producer, actress, historian, filmmaker, and civil rights activist.
“On Feb. 4, 1988, Maya Angelou graced the stage of Clowes Memorial Hall for the inaugural event of the Celebration of Diversity Distinguished Lecture Series,” recalled Valerie Davidson, Butler's director of diversity programs. “The capacity crowd was captivated by her warmth, stature, and eloquence. As the presenter, I was captivated to simply be in her presence.
“I cannot imagine a more appropriate way to celebrate the Diversity Lecture Series and our 25-year legacy of presenting distinctive voices to the Butler and greater Indianapolis community than to once again present the distinctive voice that began this phenomenal dialogue.”
Born on April 4, 1928, in St. Louis, Mo., Angelou was raised in St. Louis and Stamps, Ark. In Stamps, Angelou experienced the brutality of racial discrimination, but she also absorbed the unshakable faith and values of traditional African-American family, community, and culture.
As a teenager, Angelou's love for the arts won her a scholarship to study dance and drama at San Francisco's Labor School. At 14, she dropped out to become San Francisco's first African-American female cable car conductor. She later finished high school, giving birth to her son, Guy, a few weeks after graduation. As a young single mother, she supported her son by working as a waitress and cook. However, her passion for music, dance, performance, and poetry would soon take center stage.
In 1954 and 1955, Angelou toured Europe with a production of the opera Porgy and Bess. She studied modern dance with Martha Graham, danced with Alvin Ailey on television variety shows and, in 1957, recorded her first album, Calypso Lady. In 1958, she moved to New York, where she joined the Harlem Writers Guild, acted in the historic Off-Broadway production of Jean Genet's The Blacks and wrote and performed Cabaret for Freedom.
In 1960, Angelou moved to Cairo, Egypt where she served as editor of the English language weekly The Arab Observer. The next year, she moved to Ghana where she taught at the University of Ghana's School of Music and Drama, worked as feature editor for The African Review and wrote for The Ghanaian Times.
During her years abroad, Angelou read and studied voraciously, mastering French, Spanish, Italian, Arabic, and the West African language Fanti. While in Ghana, she met with Malcolm X and, in 1964, returned to America to help him build his new Organization of African American Unity.
Shortly after her arrival in the United States, Malcolm X was assassinated, and the organization dissolved. Soon after X's assassination, Martin Luther King Jr. asked Angelou to serve as northern coordinator for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. King's assassination, falling on her birthday in 1968, left her devastated.
With the guidance of her friend the novelist James Baldwin, she began work on the book that would become I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, which was published in 1970 to international acclaim and enormous popular success. The list of her published verse, non-fiction, and fiction now includes more than 30 bestselling titles.
A trailblazer in film and television, Angelou wrote the screenplay and composed the score for the 1972 film Georgia, Georgia. Her script, the first by an African-American woman ever to be filmed, was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize.
She continues to appear on television and in films including the landmark television adaptation of Alex Haley's Roots (1977) and John Singleton's Poetic Justice (1993). In 1996, she directed her first feature film, Down in the Delta. In 2008, she composed poetry for and narrated the award-winning documentary The Black Candle, directed by M.K. Asante.
Angelou has served on two presidential committees, was awarded the Presidential Medal of Arts in 2000, the Lincoln Medal in 2008, and has received three Grammy Awards. President Clinton requested that she compose a poem to read at his inauguration in 1993. Angelou's reading of her poem “On the Pulse of the Morning” was broadcast live around the world.
Angelou has received more than 30 honorary degrees and is Reynolds Professor of American Studies at Wake Forest University.
About Butler University
Challenging and enabling students to meet their personal and professional goals has guided Butler University since 1855. Today, Butler is a nationally recognized comprehensive university that blends the liberal arts with first-rate pre-professional programs. It seeks to prepare each graduate not simply to make a living but to make a life of purpose, in which personal flourishing is intertwined with the welfare of others. Butler is known for its vibrant campus, superior academics and dedicated faculty. The University enrolls more than 4,700 undergraduate and graduate students in six academic colleges: Arts, Business, Communication, Education, Liberal Arts and Sciences, and Pharmacy and Health Sciences. Located just six miles from downtown Indianapolis, Butler’s urban setting affords students internship opportunities that provide excellent graduate school and career preparation.
Source: Butler University