Remember, She Was Bold

I hope we don't remember Maya Angelou as a mere celebrity. What is that? Nor as some sainted statue. Not haughty, nor the possession of exalted institutions. Let's place her with the other truth tellers and freedom fighters, where she belongs, with Sojourner Truth and Harriett Tubman, with Ida B. Wells, Josephine Baker and Ella Baker, Mrs. Hamer and Shirley Chisholm ... all of them and the many, many more; the fathers and sons and brothers, including her friends and teachers Malcolm and Martin, and the many, many more; and the ones whose names only we know, the ones who reared  us, guided us, educated us, showed us to value kinship, to build strong ties with good people, to be the (wo)man in the mirror, asking: "Who am I to be blind, pretending not to see their need?" (Yeah, threw in MJ.)