UpFront

Fund Drive Special: A Black Women’s History of the US and Maya Angelou’s fantastic 1995 performance in Oakland

0:08 – Fund Drive Special: A Black Women’s History of the US

Daina Ramey Berry (@DainaRameyBerry) is the Oliver H. Radkey Regents Professor of History and Associate Dean of the Graduate School at the University of Texas at Austin.

Kali Nicole Gross (@KaliGrossPhD) is the Martin Luther King Jr. Professor of History at Rutgers University. They’ve just co-authored A Black Women’s History of the United States.

Yours for a pledge of $100 to KPFA, includes the KPFA event audio and the book.

1:08 – Fund Drive Special: Maya Angelou in Oakland

Maya Angelou was a poet, playwright, and filmmaker, best-known for her memoir, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. She was also an incredible performer. When the recording here was made, she’d just received a Grammy Award for the recording of the poem she read at the presidential inauguration of Bill Clinton. Her son, poet and writer Guy Johnson, told her he wanted to spend his 50th birthday reading poetry with her. So on September 8th, 1995, they took to the Calvin Simmons Theater in Oakland with poet Janice Mirikitani, and KPFA recorded it.

Any contribution to KPFA during our February-March 2021 fund drive receives the digital recording of Maya Angelou! Make your donation here.