From Maya Angelou
Author: Angelou, Maya
Date: January 31, 1961
Location: London, England
Genre: Letter
Topic: Martin Luther King, Jr. - Political and Social Views
Details
Angelou, the former northern regional coordinator of SCLC’s New York office, writes King and Wyatt Tee Walker a belated resignation letter.1 She tells King of her recent marriage and writes that although she intends to dedicate her “life and my energy to the cause of Human Liberation” her inability to discuss issues regarding SCLC with Walker has left her “thwarted.” In closing, Angelou wishes SCLC “unlimited strides” in the new year. On 1 March 1961 King thanked Angelou for her service.2
Rev. King & Rev. Walker
Dear Sirs:
I extend to you my heartiest wishes for a prosperous and progressive year and a profound apology for the tardiness of this letter.
It has been my intention to dedicate my life and my energy to the cause of Human Liberation. In the New York office of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, I found myself at once on the road I had chosen to take and at the same time thwarted in that undertaking. Several times I asked the Rev. Walker for an audience to discuss certain matters that had been mentioned to me by people who work with to some degree or for the S.C.L.C.. I suppose the were brought to me precisely because I was the only Negro with the New York office that could be reached easily. Unfortuanately I was unable to meet with Rev. Walker in conference and as far as I know the problems still go begging. Though I am no longer with the Organization I am sure the people (Negro) who are in the office now would be more than pleased to discuss with any official from the Atlanta office the situations that exist in the north.
I would also like to inform you that I was married on Jan. 1st, to the South African freedom fighter who was the first Black man to escape from the Union of South Africa.3 He is stationed in the Cairo office of the South Africa United Front but we will be coming back to New York when the U.N. resumes for that session so I hope during the time we are in New York City you will find business there that I might have the pleasure again of seeing and talking with you.
Again, I wish to you, the Organization and the cause a year of unlimited strides and I join with millions of black people the world over in saying ‘You are our leader’.
Sincerely,
[signed] Maya Make
Maya Angelou Make
1. Maya Angelou (1928–2014) was born Marguerite Johnson in St. Louis, Missouri. After a brief marriage to Tosh Angelos in 1950, she moved to New York City to study dance and was cast in a production of “Porgy and Bess.” In 1960, Angelou heard King speak in Harlem and pledged to help SCLC raise funds by staging a revue, “Cabaret for Freedom,” and that summer she became northern coordinator of SCLC’s New York office after Bayard Rustin’s resignation. Later in the year she resigned from SCLC and moved to Cairo with her son and new husband Vusimuzi Make. After her second marriage ended in divorce, Angelou taught at the University of Ghana for several years before moving back to the United States in 1966. Her first autobiography, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, was published in 1970. Angelou went on to write four other volumes of her autobiography, publish several books of poetry, and appear on Broadway and in films.
2. At the top of Angelou’s letter, King handwrote an instruction to SCLC public relations director James R. Wood: “Tell her how good it is to hear from her and I hope to see her when she is in the states again.”
3. Vusimuzi Make, a representative of the Pan Africanist Congress, was exiled to Sibasa in the Transvaal for his political activities, but managed to obtain fake documentation and escape to Rhodesia. There he made contact with leaders who helped him escape to Nairobi, Kenya. When he met Angelou, Make was in New York to petition the United Nations against apartheid in South Africa.
Source: MLKP-MBU, Martin Luther King, Jr., Papers, 1954–1968, Boston University, Boston, Mass.