The Teacher and the Students: Remembering Maya Angelou in Culture

Maya Angelou died this morning, 86 years young.

The news is devastating for innumerable reasons, one of which is that she was a teacher to so many, in so many different ways. Whether through her autobiographies, her poems, her speeches, her private conversations, or as an actual professor at Wake Forest University, she always seemed to be teaching. And advising. And guiding.

A less intuitive avenue for her teaching was in her occasional acting stints. Maya was a good actress, convincingly transforming (see her on the The Richard Pryor Show in 1977), but even with the chops to carry a part, it was always hard for Maya Angelou to fully turn off the Maya Angelou. And that was for the better. Such was the case when Maya took on the role of Aunt June in 1993’s Janet Jackson–Tupac Shakur coming-of-age tale, Poetic Justice.

Aunt June starts a speech in this film with, “I want to talk to you about morals.” It’s Aunt June, but it’s also Maya Angelou. And somehow, even in full respectability politics mode, it’s not unbearably patronizing, because — again — it’s Maya Angelou. And that’s not what she’s about.

This is only amplified upon hearing Maya talk about her time on the set of Poetic Justice. And meeting Tupac. And how he cried right in front of her.

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