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Cape Town, South Africa (PANA) – The Nelson Mandela Foundation has paid a glowing tribute to poet and author Maya Angelou, who died Wednesday at the age of 86.
Angelou, who rose from poverty, segregation and violence to become a powerful stage personality, worked as a professor of American Studies at Wake Forest University in the United States.
“On behalf of our board of trustees and staff, the Nelson Mandela Foundation mourns the passing of Maya Angelou,” said spokeswoman Danielle Melville.
Melville said Mandela met Angelou in Cairo, Egypt, in 1962, while he was garnering support for the liberation struggle and undergoing military training.
At the time, Angelou was married to Pan Africanist Congress activist Vusumzi Make.
“In 1986, Mr Mandela watched in prison the film version of her work ‘I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings’,” she said.
Mandela met the poet again in Washington in 1993, soon after he was released from prison and attended the inauguration of former US President Bill Clinton.
Angelou also wrote and dedicated a poem to Mandela, entitled “His Day is Done”, when he died in December last year.
