I was co-editor of the Middlesex Community College newspaper and a founding member of “Voices” literary magazine, clawing my way back up the higher education ladder when I first was introduced to Maya Angelou. I am very grateful for my experiences at MCC. That year Dr. Angelou’s book, I know why the caged bird sings, was the common book selection. Everyone read it and it was incorporated into most of the course ware. I was so attracted to her story and the graceful, poetic style of her prose work. She draws in the reader with generosity and kindness, yet she is so very fierce. Later that year she paid a visit to the Lowell campus of MCC and I was spellbound.

Many years later, my wife and I read her memoirs and visited her old haunts in San Francisco. She really is a righteous, powerful force in the world and we are all better for the time she spent with us.