“On the Pulse of Morning”

January 20, 1993, was a big day for the woman who was born in 1928 and named Marguerite Ann Johnson.

You probably don’t know her by that name, for she was introduced as Maya Angelou before reading one of her poems at Bill Clinton’s inauguration as POTUS on that January day 22 years ago today.

Angelou was the first poet to make an inaugural recitation since Robert Frost at John F. Kennedy’s inauguration in 1961. Also, she was the first woman as well as the first African-American to do so.

The poem Angelou recited at President Clinton’s inauguration was titled “On the Pulse of Morning.” It ended with these words:

Here on the pulse of this new day

You may have the grace to look up and out

And into your sister’s eyes,

And into your brother’s face,

Your country,

And say simply

Very simply /

With hope –

Good morning.

It was a very suitable poem for the new President from Hope, Arkansas.

Marguerite was born in St. Louis but mostly spent her early years, from age three to twelve, living with her grandmother in Stamps, Ark., a small town not far north of the Louisiana border.

Reading about the indignities she suffered as a little black girl in Arkansas helps us to understand Martin Luther King Jr’s passion for changing unjust laws, for he was just a year younger than Maya.

The town of Stamps is about 65 miles southwest of Bearden, Ark., where black theologian James Cone was reared. And even though he was born ten years after Maya, the violence against African-Americans in Arkansas, and elsewhere, led Cone to write his most recent book, “The Cross and the Lynching Tree” (2011).

In 1940, after Bailey, Maya’s brother, saw the body of a black man who had been lynched, “Momma,” their grandmother, decided to take the two children to their mother, who then lived in California.

Bailey, a year older than his sister, is the one who gave Marguerite her new first name. When they were small, he referred to her as “my-a sister” and then the nickname Maya stuck. Around 1953, after she became a night club performer in San Francisco, she took the name Angelou for her stage name.

Angelou’s most widely-read book is “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” (1969). It is her autobiography from the age of three, when she and Bailey were sent to Arkansas, until she was 17. I just finished reading it for the first time last night. It is a beautifully written book, and definitely one well worth reading.

Maya had a wide variety of experiences between the age of 17 and when she was 64 in January 1993. Among other things, by then she was a nationally known author and poet. And in 1991 she had become a professor at Wake Forest University.

Her memorial service was held at WFU’s Wait Chapel on June 7 last year, ten days after her passing at the age of 86.

It is amazing how people can rise from humble circumstances to great heights. That fact is clearly seen in the outstanding life Maya Angelou. It was also true for Bill Clinton, who was born just about 30 miles north of Stamps.

Amazing Maya Angelou left the world many good poems and other words worth considering well, such as these from her book “Celebrations” (2006):

Let gratitude be the pillow upon which you kneel to say your nightly prayer. And let faith be the bridge you build to overcome evil and welcome good.

Bill Clinton: Father of the Year?!

The 72^nd annual Father of the Year awards were presented this past Tuesday (June 11) at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in New York City by the National Father’s Day Committee, an entity of the Father’s Day/Mother’s Day Council. Former President Bill Clinton was one of the recipients.

I first read about Clinton’s selection as “father of the year” back in January, and I was somewhat surprised to hear of his selection. Perhaps some of you, though, tend to agree with the two senior fellows of the Family Research Council, an organization founded by James Dobson in 1981, who wrote that Clinton was “unbelievably” chosen and that it was a “misdirected award.”

Actually, Clinton is just one of this year’s recipients, and some of you Republicans may be glad to know that Dan Quayle was one of the recipients in 1989 and Ronald Reagan was an awardee in 1957.

More than politicians, though, through the years there seems to have been a disproportionate number of sports celebrities chosen—such as Shaq O’Neal, the basketball superstar, last year.

Certainly Clinton’s personal indiscretions before, during, and after (?) his years in the White House are certainly not what one would expect from someone named “father of the year.” There is no way of knowing how those indiscretions negatively impacted the life of Chelsea, now 33, Bill and Hillary’s only child.

But Chelsea made a surprise appearance at Tuesday’s event and presented the award to her father. “Every day he’s my dad, and I don’t need an award to tell me he’s the best that I could have hoped for,” she said. “But I’m grateful he’s getting the recognition that I, of course, his unapologetically biased daughter, think he’s always deserved.” 

And Clinton said he received a text message from Hillary saying, “Congratulations. I think you deserve this.”

Back in January when the Council announced Clinton’s selection, they highlighted Clinton's philanthropy through the Clinton Foundation and the Clinton Global Initiative—as well as his work as the U.N. Special Envoy for Haiti. Exemplary fathers, they seem to imply, do more than care for just their own children.

What Clinton has done since he left the White House is considerably more praiseworthy than what we have seen from the most recent ex-president, who has been more of an exemplary father along traditional lines of thought. (Does he really spend time painting his feet in the bathtub?!)

According to the website of the Father’s Day/Mother’s Day Council, “The objective of this 72 year-old program [to present the Father of the Year awards] is to enhance the meaning of Father’s Day—Sunday, June 16, 2013—and encourage universal observance.”

Some of us have only memories of our fathers, as they have passed on. (My father, whom I remember with great respect and appreciation, died nearly six years ago.) Most of you will be able to honor your father directly tomorrow, in person or by telephone.

And those of us who are fathers can use this time to reflect on how we can be better fathers—for our own children and for the children of the world. Perhaps “father of the year” Bill Clinton is an example for us to emulate because of not just what he has done for Chelsea but primarily what he has done for so many children (and adults) through the Clinton Foundation and the activities of the Clinton Global Initiative.