New York Public Library opens commemorative Maya Angelou exhibition

By The Associated Press
May 30 2014 08:20 AM

CP28564580 — FILE - This Nov. 21, 2008 file photo shows poet Maya Angelou smiling in Washington. Angelou, a Renaissance woman and cultural pioneer, has died, Wake Forest University said in a statement Wednesday, May 28, 2014. She was 86. Maya Angelou walked into a meeting of civil rights leaders discussing affirmative action, looked around, and put them all in their place with a single observation. “She came into the room,” recalled Al Sharpton, “and she said, ‘The first problem is you don’t have women in here of equal status. We need to correct you before you can correct the country.’” Angelou, who died Wednesday at age 86, will be forever known for her soaring poetry and her searing memoirs. But her impact transcended her written words. She was the nation’s wise woman, a poet to presidents, an unapologetic conscience for the civil rights movement. Never hesitant to speak her mind, Angelou passionately defended women, and literature, and the right of younger generations to be heard. “I\'ve seen many things, I\'ve learned many things,” she told The Associated Press in 2013. “I\'ve certainly been exposed to many things and I\'ve learned something: I owe it to you to tell you."(AP Photo/Gerald Herbert, File)

NEW YORK, N.Y. – The New York Public Library is presenting an exhibition commemorating the life of Maya Angelou.

The monthlong exhibition opened Friday at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem.

The celebrated poet and author died Wednesday at her home in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, at age 86. Her personal papers are housed at the Schomburg. The library acquired them in 2010.

Among the exhibition highlights are her correspondence with James Baldwin and Malcolm X. Other items include a handwritten copy of her memoir “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.”

Also featured is the original typed copy of “On the Pulse of Morning.” She read the poem at President Bill Clinton’s 1993 inauguration.

The exhibition runs through June 30.

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