Maya Angelou Read Free

college degree. Instead, her advanced education was achieved through what she described as the “direct instruction” of African American cultural forms: “If you’ve grown up in an environment where the lore is passed on by insinuation, direct instruction, music, dance, and all other forms of instruction, then that is still the thing out of which you have to move” (“Icon” 1997).
    It is part of her genius that she was virtually self-educated, although she did do some work in writing groups where self-criticism was an essential form of the learning process. Because of her accomplishments in writing, theater, and the arts, and because of her known strengths as a commencement speaker, academic institutions have granted her honorary doctorates. In 1975, Smith College and Mills College conferred on Angelou her first two honorary degrees; reportedly more than fifty were conferred during her career, including one in 1997 from Wake Forest University, where she held a lifetime appointment as First Reynolds Professor from 1981 to her death. Many of her admirers still call her by her honorary title, Dr. Angelou, a distinction with which she had seemed happy.
    Soon after her death a sarcastic historian, Mark Oppenheimer, who calls himself a “good cocktail-party bullshit artist,” set off a controversy when, in an article printed in The New Republic , he challenged the “Dr. Angelou” title. While managing to disparage Angelou for her doctoral twitters and tweets, Oppenheimer just happened to mention his Yale degree and his “earned” PhD in religion. The Rand Paul Forum immediately cited Oppenheimer’s views, agreeing with them, while (Dr.) Brittney Cooper, writing in Salon , retaliated with an angry, compelling piece: “Yes, Maya Angelou was a doctor: A lesson for the ignorant” (2014, n.p.). Cooper made the telling points that blacks, especially black women, have been historically limited in their pursuit of higher education and that Angelou, through her many major works, has proven herself a master in her field.
    As I was researching this thorny topic I came across a 2011 article in the Boston Globe by Tracy Jan entitled “Degree of Difficulty: Really Almost Nil.” The article, which presents an overview of earned versus honorary doctorates, features an interview with Maya Angelou, who told Ms. Jans that “a person has a right to be called anything she or he wants to becalled…. I’ve earned it.” Angelou continued, “I’m a worker…. Some people who have gotten their PhDs have sat back down on their—I’m stumbling on the anatomy—and given nothing” (n.p.)
    Throughout the autobiographical series Maya Angelou refers to herself by a number of names but never by “Dr. Angelou”; a title that she may have adopted as a result of being named Reynolds Professor at Wake Forest University in 1981 or perhaps following her performance for the inauguration of President Bill Clinton on January 20, 1993. She referred to herself by that title several times in her 2004 cookbook Hallelujah! The Welcome Table (188, 201, 202). Maya’s mother liked to call her Ritie or Baby. Her thoughtless employer, Mrs. Cullinan, called her Mary. But it was her brother Bailey who gave her the name that lasted, Maya, for “My” and “my sister” (Davis in Elliot 1989, 75).
    As for her stage name, she kept Rita Johnson until her marriage to Tosh Angelos in 1952. Sometime after the three-year marriage ended in divorce she opted for a more theatrical name at the strong suggestion of her managers at the San Francisco nightclub, the Purple Onion (Shuker 1990, 70–71). Her new name captured the feel of her Calypso performances. That name, Maya Angelou , will be used consistently in this book to preserve continuity. I use the term “Dr.” in referring to Angelou only a few times, most conspicuously as the first word of