Be the rainbow in someone else’s cloud, said poet and activist Maya Angelou Sunday night during a lecture at the Mershon Auditorium. Speaking words of her wisdom to a crowd of 1,800 Ohio State students, she sang and read poetry to the audience, all the while reminiscing tales from her life.
Seated in a wooden chair at center stage, Angelou began her lecture with the recitation of a poem.
“When it looked like the sun wasn’t gonna shine anymore … God put a rainbow in the clouds,” she sang.
Angelou canceled five events in Texas and Arizona because of an undisclosed illness but said she couldn’t miss the opportunity to speak at OSU.
“This place has been the rainbow in the clouds for so many reasons,” Angelou said. One of the reasons included Ohio’s participation in the Underground Railroad.
“This state provided the most generosity to those involved in the Underground Railroad,” she said. Another reason was to celebrate the first generation college students enrolled here.
“I was longing to come here and to thank you. I wanted to remind us … each one of you has the possibility to be a rainbow in the cloud.”
Brought to OSU by the Ohio Union Activities Board, Angelou spoke about her childhood and how she overcame personal tragedies and struggles to pursue her dreams and goals. She shared her stories in an effort to exemplify her “black” identity—the racism she witnessed her entire youth, and the sexual abuse she suffered at the hands of her mother’s boyfriend at the age of 8.
Abandoned by her parents as a toddler, Angelou and her elder brother, Bailey, traveled alone to Stamps, Ark., to live with her paternal grandmother and her uncle Willie. She also spoke at great lengths about the heroes and “she-roes” in her life — those who helped her along the way.
She read to the auditorium a poem she had written for her uncle, a person who she claimed was a hero in her life.
“Ask for me and you will see that I am present in the songs that children sing. I am the rhyme, ask for me, call me crippled Willie,” she read.
“If you look at your family, each one of us has a crippled Willie,” Angelou said. “We live in relation to the heroes and she-roes in our lives. Thank them so that we can become rainbows in other people’s lives.”
She spoke about the impact that qualities such as grace, respect and kindness have in interactions with other people.
“You have no idea what it does for someone, let alone yourself,” she said. “My encouragement is to realize who you are and what you are … don’t be ignorant all your life.”
Hailed as one of the great contemporary voices in literature, Angelou is a noted novelist, essayist, actress, dancer, activist, director and playwright. Over the course of her lifetime, she has received 65 honorary doctorate degrees. She received the Presidential Medal of Arts in 2000 and the Lincoln Medal in 2008. She has also received three Grammy Awards for her spoken-word albums. In 1993, she was the Inaugural Poet during President Bill Clinton’s Inauguration ceremony.
At the beginning of her lecture, the introducer to her speech said Angelou had only received 30 honorary degrees, which Angelou later corrected.
“I am grateful for the introduction, but the truth is, I have 65 doctorates. I do not want to brag about myself, but I had a rainbow in my cloud,” she said to the audience, which applauded in return.
Upon conclusion to her lecture, she left the audience with one last piece of advice.
“Don’t live in some mean little tunnel because of someone else’s ignorance,” she said. “Don’t do that to yourself.”
