My Hero 2 ( 4/4/1928- Maya Angelou)

“I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” 


Mary Angelou's life; documented eloquently but informally as dates and time-charts blur out of vision in her biographies as said by her biographer once, portrays her famous quote well. Though details of Mary Angelou's life were inconsistent, she captured the important essence of her trials and tribulations while growing up in difficult times ( Great Depression and World War 2) and losing close friends (Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, who were both assassinated). Her continuous strive to bring up her son as a single parent and will to live brought her through different phases of jobs from working as a prostitute up until becoming the established poet that we all know today.


What is life without a purpose? What is love without passion? Through Maya Angelou's biographies, especially the highly-aclaimed "I Know Why The Caged Birds Sing", teaches us to persevere. Maya Angelou is  not an iconic person that can be recognised through the term 'hero', but she's an amazing individual that lived her life to the fullest. We here today, complain about the slightest things such as exams and being bored at home whereas Maya Angelou in our age persevered through high school and later earning a scholarship to study in the California Labor School; one of her earliest accomplishments in her life.


I end my short essay on Maya Angelou with another amazing quote from her that once again emphasises on perseverance;

All my work, my life, everything I do is about survival, not just bare, awful, plodding survival, but survival with grace and faith. While one may encounter many defeats, one must not be defeated".