A memorial service for celebrated civil rights activist, author and poet Dr Maya Angelou is scheduled to take place on Saturday 7 June at 10am at Wake Forest University where she taught for the past three decades.
Angelou, who first received international acclaim for her autobiography 'I know why the caged bird sings', published in1969, passed away at her home in North Carolina aged 86 last Wednesday, 28 May.
In addition to a stellar literary career – Angelou penned six more autobiographies and authored numerous plays and poems – she is famed for her involvement in the US Civil Rights Movement. Enjoying close friendships with Dr Martin Luther King Jr, Nelson Mandela and Malcolm X, Angelou insisted that her achievements in the fight for equality were down to her faith in God.
"I found that I knew not only that there was God but that I was a child of God, when I understood that, when I comprehended that, more than that, when I internalized that, ingested that, I became courageous," she told The Times-Picayune.
"I dared to do anything that was a good thing. I dared to do things as distant from what seemed to be in my future. If God loves me, if God made everything from leaves to seals and oak trees, then what is it I can't do?"
Praise for Angelou has poured in since her death, with a statement from Wake Forest University reading that she "touched the lives of...students in a personal and profound way. For more than 30 years, she inspired them to be courageous and embrace life fully".
Former student Bentrice Jusu, who went on to found non-profit organisation 'Both Hands: The Artlet', which works to engage young people in the arts in New Jersey, says Angelou was instrumental in teaching her pupils about being change-makers in the world.
"Dr Angelou said we can learn to see each other and see ourselves in each other and recognise that human beings are more alike than we are unalike," Jusu wrote on a memorial page set up by the university.
"She taught me I am a human being. I am capable of every single thing. It doesn't make me better or worse than anyone else. It just makes me human. This powerful message resonated deeply and validated my pursuits to a selfless venture."
"I will be forever grateful for the wisdom she so carefully and unselfishly poured into us," Matt Williams, another former student added.
"There were countless moments that I will cherish, but the theme of the course, 'I am a human being, nothing human will be alien to me' is something I carry with me daily."
The memorial service on Saturday will be private, though it will be streamed online here. Her family is said to be organising "additional celebrations of her life" to be held across the US, which will be confirmed at a later date.
