thank you, allison, so much for that song. to president clinton and first lady michelle obama, to guy johnson, colin,
lee ann womack i hope you dance free mp3 download, stephanie, the entire family-our things giving family, those of us who consider ourselves family
[laughter] i, uh, i remember the first time i heard that phrase " god put a rainbow in the clouds." i was in utter despair and distraught and had called maya. i remember being locked in the
bathroom with the door closed sitting on the toilet seat. and i was crying so hard she could barely understand what i was saying. i was upset about something that i cannot remember.
isn't that how life works? i called for a long-distance cry on her shoulder but she was not having it. she said, as you all know she could, stop it. stop it now. i said what?
what are you saying? she said stop your crying now. i continued to sniffle and she said did you hear me? and i said, yes, ma'am. only she could level me to my seven-year-old self in an instant.
and she said -- i said i'm trying to explain and she said i want you to stop and say thank you. because whatever it is, you have the faith to know that god has put a rainbow in the clouds.
[applause] you are going to come out on the other side of whatever it is the better for it. she was in always, no matter the time of day or night with the situation, she was always there for me to be the rainbow.
i am here today to say thank you, to acknowledge to you all and the world how powerful one life can be. the life of maya angelou. the loss i feel - i cannot describe. it's like something i have never
felt before. she was my spiritual queen mother and everything that that word implies. she was the ultimate teacher. she taught me the poetry of courage and respect. many a day i would ask her
advice while trying to navigate the pitfalls of fame, of a public life when somebody had written or said something hurtful and untrue and she would say, av, you are not in it. you're not in it when they wrote it and when he sat down at the typewriter.
that's a long web and talking. -- that's how long we have been talking. she would say those people cannot hold a candle to the light got already has shine on your face. can't you see it?
she would say look up, look up and see the light. when i was on trial in 1998 in texas were saying something that about a burger yes, for six weeks, i was on trial with the texas cattlemen, mama angelou came to texas with
a prayeroposse. and we all know that maya was a force all by herself but the force came with backup. they prayed all day and all night long and maya would sit in the courtroom while i testified. the prosecuting attorney did not
know what hit him. the lawyer mom had arrived in amarillo and it was at the same time that i met dr. phil who was coaching me on how to behave in the courtroom and he said, look in the jurors eyes and maya said no, look above their heads. look above their heads.
she'd say look above their heads and stand still inside yourself and know who you are. you are god's child come and she told me, and in god you move and breathe and have your being. of course, we won that trial. and every other one i faced, she
was always there holding me up, holding me up to know myself. to see the light that already had shining on my face. yes, i will miss her. stedman gail and i recently visited with her and i walked into the room and her eyes lit
up and she greeted me as she always did in person or on the phone and she said, hello you darling girl. had taken a liking to the ipad i gave her and i loved that all of her nose began with "oh deario and ended with love, ma,
maya angelou. when her mother vivian baxter told her at age 17, you know baby, you may be one of the greatest women i have ever known. she did not know she was prophesying what we all now know to be true.
maya angelou is the greatest woman i have ever known. in all the ways that only she could define what it means to be, in her words, real woman and not just an aging female. but a proud to spell my name, w-o -ma-an kind of woman.
she had many daughter throughout the world, stephanie rosa, her great gift to us is that you made every one of us feel like we were the one. she met us feel heard and seen and loved and special and worthy. you alone are
not and i am the woman i am today because she was. she not only existed as she proclaimed in her poem " tall trees" she thrives to help other people do the same and indeed as she said we can be better and do
better because she existed. you know, i still -- i marvel at god. i am just in off --awe, that i, a little colored him of the negro girl, growing up in mississippi, having read " know why the caged bird sings"
and for the first time reading a story about someone who was like me - i marveled that from the first page , what is she looking at me for? i was that girl who had done easter pieces and christmas
pieces. i was that girl who loved to read. i was the girl who was raised by my southern grandmother. i was that girl who was raped at nine. my first met maya angelou in the
late 1970's and baltimore as a young news reporter, and begged her to do an interview with me and i said i promise, i promise, it if you give me your time, it will only be five minutes. at the end of four minutes and 58 seconds, i told the
cameraman, done and maya angelou looked at me and said who are you, girl? first, we became friendly then sister friends on the first time she told me i was her daughter, i know i have found home. sitting at her kitchen table on
valley road she was reading paul lawrence dunbar, " literal brown bit -- little brown baby with sparkling eyes." that was my favorite ways of the kitchen table or leaning at her feet or over her left laughing for real. soaking up all that knowledge,
although things that she had to teach, the grace, the love, all of it, my heart was full. rarely did we ever have a phone conversation where i was not taking notes. she was always teaching. when you learn, teach, when you get, give, i was at the voted
student of maya angelou. learning up to our last conversation the sunday before she died. it has been difficult for me to try to put into words what it means to lose, as ceecily said, our rock.
she was my anchor. so it's hard to describe to you what it means when you're anchor shifts. but i realized this morning that i really don't have to put it into words.
what i have to do is live it. because that's what she would want. she would want me, you, us to live her legacy. i remember when i opened my school in south africa and i said to her, this is going to be
my greatest legacy and she said, not so fast. your legacy, she said, is every woman who ever watched your show who decided to go back to school. your legacy is every man who decided to forgive his father. it's every gay person who
decided to come out because they saw a show of yours. your legacy is every person you ever touched. your legacy is how you lived and what you'd did and what you said every day. so true, sister maya. i want to live your legacy.
we want to live your legacy as you touched us all. each of us who knew her , those only touched by her words were those who were able were blessed to sit at the kitchen table, we are next in line to be a maya angelou to someone else.
it's a challenge that i embrace with my whole heart. i cannot fill her shoes but i can walk in her footsteps. to carry and pass on to the next generation what she knew so well , what you try to teach all of us -- we are more alike than we
are different. when i see you, i'm really just looking at myself in a different costume. i am human and therefore nothing human is alien to me, she used to teach. so, we must carry on and pass on
lifting humanity up, helping people to live lives of purpose and dignity, to pass on the poetry of courage and respect. that is what she would want. that is what we will do. and i know i will do it in a way
that she would most want. in my last conversation with her, i was telling her about going to film a movie "selma," and she said to me as she always
said when i was doing any kind of job, she said, baby, i want you to do it and i want you to take it, take it all the way.
