Mary circa 1871, with medals she didn’t earn, but it wasn’t illegal for her to wear and they really do spiff up her outfit, don’t they?
In honor of International Nurses Day on May 12, we decided to revisit the life of Mary Seacole. Sure, Florence Nightingale would have been a more obvious choice, but, well, she was too obvious. Mary was a contemporary of Florence, they even had an encounter during their lives, but Mary aided soldiers during the Crimean War a bit differently than Florence did and headed right down to the front lines to help make people comfortable (and sell some food.) Mary was beloved, brave, smart, ambitious, and enchanted most everyone she met.
Time Travel with The History Chicks
For the links of things we talked about in this episode, visit Mary’s original shownotes here: Mary Seacole
For information about the Local’s Meet-up dinner in London on August 7th, and to see if there are any spots for the tour, visit LIKE MINDS TOURS.
Maya at Elon University, 2012, Elon Universtiy via Flickr
Maya Angelou was a writer, poet, memoirist, civil rights activist, entertainer, director, producer, mom, friend…but she was most masterful at sharing her life with the perfect collections of words. We use the best ones we can muster to share her remarkable life story.
We wrap up our three-part series on Dr. Angelou beginning as Maya leaves Africa to headed back to the US and work for civil rights leader, and friend, Malcolm X ‘s Organization of African American Unity. His assassination not long after her arrival sent her into both grief and a search for the next chapter in her life.
Writing. She felt led to be a writer, and the best place for that was back with her literary friends in New York. While there, she took an opportunity to work with her old friend, Martin Luther King, Jr…who was assassinated right before her first day.
But setbacks in life often lead to the perfect path. She threw herself into writing a 10-part PBS series, Blacks, Blues, Black! which lead, in 1969, the publication of her first autobiography, I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings.
For the rest of her (long) life, she combined all of her life experiences, her gifts, her skills, and her wisdom and shared it with the world. She was a memoirist, a poet, a playwright, a songwriter, a performer, a lecturer, an educator…a grandmother…she loved and lost, and all along the way she captured her words in the perfect order projected by her strong personality (and often her unique voice) to leave her mark on our world.
1993 Clinton inauguration Courtesy Clinton Presidential LibraryPresident Obama bestowing the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2010 Courtesy White House
Maya Angelou died on May 28th, 2014 at the age of 86. No one can tell her story like she did, so we’ll leave you with Maya herself sharing a little of her words and wisdom.
Time Travel With The History Chicks
Books!
Not technically a book, but Maya Angelou: The Autobiographies from BBC is a six-part, audio dramatization of some of her work. Susan got it for one credit on Audible and had an amazing experience. You can learn more at THIS LINK TO BBC.
You can read every one of her perfectly chosen words in this massive tome:
Not technically a book, but Maya Angelou: The Autobiographies from BBC is a six-part, audio dramatization of some of her work. Susan got it for one credit on Audible and had an amazing experience. You can learn more at THIS LINK TO BBC
The only detailed biography Susan could find but written before her death by Marcia Anne Gillespie, Rosa Johnson Butler, and Richard A. Long; foreword by Oprah WinfreyMaya’s essays about memorable food in her life and the recipes- delightful! (And her fried chicken recipe is in here!)More autobiographical essays with recipes for international dishes all based around her weight loss through portion control.By Editors of Essence Magazine, essays about her.Great series for kids, by Ellen LaBrecque
Web!
Here is a whole lot of information (and pictures) about the Rosenwald Schools like the one a young Maya Johnson attended: The Rosenwald Schools.
An article on the Quote Investigator site discussing the phrase “Churchillian Drift” coined by radio host, Nigel Rees of the BBC show Quote Unquote (so QI is fact-checking something the OG quote fact-checker said.)
There is a Maya Barbie…do we know what to think about this?
Her estate maintains a website, there is some information, pictures, and a link to the Dr. Maya Angelou Foundation if you would like to get involved in her life’s work.
Some information (read: the opening of the hole Beckett fell down) the Hawaiian Jazz scene.
“Summertime” from Porgy and Bess, Metropolitan Opera:
This makes sense if you listened to the episode, but we simply can not leave it out!
Caged Bird Songs, Maya’s own words with a beat, it may be an acquired taste.
Moving Pictures!
Maya’s first adventure in television occurred in 1968 when she wrote, produced, and hosted a 10-part PBS series Blacks, Blues, Black! The whole series is online HERE!
If you would like to learn about the incredible discovery that made our viewing (here in the future) possible, here’s an article about it: From The Archive
There are so very many interviews with her, if you start with this one, with her dear friend, Oprah, YouTube will connect you with maaaaany more.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGlE1fAU1dI
PBS has an American experience about Dr. Angelou, it’s streaming on Prime through the PBS Documentaries subscription, but you may be able to find it elsewhere, here’s more information about that Maya Angelou: And Still I Rise.
And, finally, we want you to listen to Maya read and speak her own words, she left so many treasures for us.
We’re going to be in London in August and would love for you to join us for a Thames River Dinner cruise on August 7th, 2021! Get more info and sign-up here at Like Minds Travel
The first break song was A Fork Where a Fork Don’t Fit by James Harper, the second was Sonata Pathétique in C minor by Mario Ajero
End music: Press On by Loot
music used with permission by both iLicenseMusic and James Harper
Maya Angelou was a writer, poet, memoirist, civil rights activist, entertainer, director, producer, mom, friend…but she was most masterful at sharing her life with the perfect collections of words. We use the best one we can muster to share her remarkable life story. (And a lot of them, this is going to take three episodes.)
In this, Part Two of Maya’s story, we begin with a teenage Marguerite/Maya giving birth to her son, Clyde Bailey Johnson (who later changed his name to “Guy” so we use that through the rest of the episode…one name change per subject is enough, don’t you think?) We go through her tumultuous/exciting/brave/terrifying early adult years, her many jobs, her stage and singing career, her burgeoning civil rights activism, her life as a “wife” and journalist in Cairo, and, then, as a single mom and journalist in Ghana.
Aaaand then we stop. Why? Because we were so enthralled by her story that, after two full episodes, we had yet to get to the part where she starts writing books! In this episode we are still almost a decade out from her very first memoir, the thing she is most known for. Because there is so much left of Maya’s life to talk about, we decided not to race through it, but to break it into an unprecedented (for us) three-part series.
Part Three will be ready for your ears next week. All of the media recommendations will be in the shownotes for that episode.
This episode includes non-graphic descriptions of assaults, including one of a child. We give a heads-up in the body of the episode.
Maya Angelou was a writer, poet, memoirist, civil rights activist, entertainer, teacher, director, producer, mom, and friend but she was most masterful at sharing her life and wisdom with the most perfect collections of words. We use the bests one we can muster up to share her remarkable life story.
We have been talking with our friends Greg Young and Tom Meyers, The Bowery Boys, for years about doing a project together. This isn’t that, but it is a subject that a lot (A LOT) of people have requested of us. Because it’s a bit out of our focus, we thought there’s no one better than Greg and Tom, experts in New York City history, to tell you about the city’s early 1900s women’s protest movements and how they are tragically tied to the Triangle Shirtwaist fire. (more…)
