by Zarana Sanghani
Staff Writer
Noted author Maya Angelou entered the spotlight at the Cullen Performance Hall Thursday night dancing and singing in English, Spanish and French. Angelou cited poetry for a National Kidney Foundation of Southeast Texas Inc. fund-raiser.
After a song, she addressed the audience to discuss the fund-raiser. "We're pretty fantastic, that we can come together tonight and encourage each other to come together to support research for someone we'll never meet," Angelou said.
She also discussed the hardships of life. People must learn to survive, and poetry - especially African-American poetry - teaches them how to survive and enjoy life, she said.
Angelou told of her own hardships and how poetry helped her overcome them. She was raped by her mother's boyfriend at age eight, after which she became mute and went to live at her grandmother's home. Angelou read poetry often. Her grandmother would ask her to read the poetry aloud because she said poetry would "put starch in your back." Five years later, Angelou broke her silence by citing Paul Dunbar's "Jumpback," a romantic poem addressing a girl.
Angelou recalled the story of an audience member many years ago who said she had attempted suicide several times, but wrote to her mother that she would never do so again after hearing Angelou cite poetry.
In the 1940s, Angleou earned a living for herself and her son as a cabaret dancer. The experience led to acting and singing opportunities in presentations ranging from stage performances to movie roles. She won an Emmy award for the television miniseries Roots.
Angelou has written several novels, among them I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. She became the northern coordinator for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in the 1960s at the request of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.
"Everybody needs poetry to compose themselves," Angelou said, and people need composition to give to others, like recipients of kidney foundation funds.
Kidney foundation spokesman Stephen T. Harris said, "It's hard to tell fund totals right now, but in non-monetary terms it was a success. We were able to bring recognition to NFK."
Harris said "Arts and You," one of five kidney foundation fundraising groups, chose Angelou because she appealed to a broad audience of all races, ages and socioeconomic background.
The money collected goes directly into research for kidney and urinary diseases, which strike one in every 25 Texans.
"We were looking for someone to partner with that would give their full effort to the event," Harris said.
The University of Houston African-American Studies Program added to the project because of its interest in Angelou as an African-American writer and the disproportional number of blacks who are infected with kidney diseases.
African-American Studies Director of Development Johanna Wolfe said, "We came on the scene after the NFK already had (Angleou). We did a party afterwards for the sponsors."
The African-American Studies Program is trying to fulfill the requirements for a National Endowment for Humanities Challenge Grant, which consist of naming two special positions in history and literature. It filled a chair for history and must fill one for literature. The history chair is Richard Blackett.
The Angelou performance raised funds for, and gave visibility to, the chair, Wolfe said.