Maya Angleou

November 17, 2020

Ms. Maya Angelou

Dear Ms. Angelou:

Ms. Angelou you are well known as a poet, memoirist and civil rights activist who was never afraid to confront your past no matter how horrible it might have been. In 1993 at the inauguration of President Bill Clinton you became the first poet since Robert Frost in 1961 to make an inaugural recitation. Although you have passed away fairly recently, developments since your passing and this quote by you gave me a reason to write to you sooner than the others I usually write to.

 “History, despite its wrenching pain cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage, need not be lived again.”

Ms. Angelou, we live in a time where history is being shredded and revised to fit certain narratives. As you are well aware, we live in what is called a “cancel culture” where those who cannot accept the facts as they happened and have no idea on how to learn from it, fail to remember that this country was founded over 244 years ago during a much different time and things do change. What was considered the norm 244 years ago can be looked upon as an evil today or what you refer to as a wrenching pain. What you are espousing in your statement is not new and many have expressed a desire to learn from the past. I have previously written to Prime Minister Golda Meir and she pretty much is on the same page as you Ms. Angelou. Where history cannot be unlived it cannot also be erased according to Ms. Meir.

“One cannot and must not try to erase the past merely because it does not fit the present.”

However, there is one word in your quote that stood out and went further than the Prime Minister and that word is courage. These cancel culture and history revisionists today seem to lack the courage to confront what was the past a past which cannot hurt them today. Their lack of courage is demonstrated by them tearing down monuments which they feel are offensive and cannot harm them. The only way it can harm them is in their small minds. They also look to re-write the history books so as not to upset them because they are easily offended and again  they have nothing to fear from the past but much to learn from it.

The fact that you and Ms. Meir, two very intelligent women from very different eras and backgrounds realize the importance of history which tells me that we do not have anything to fear from our pasts. It is the lack of courage by some who keep us from moving on and improving faster than we are now. Ms. Angelou, I will keep you informed on how we progress on this issue and as always, I will espouse the need that we all must learn from history in order to improve.

Sincerely,

Andrew DeMarco

P.S. Ms. Angelou if you are interested in reading my letter to Prime Minister Meir the link to that letter is below.

Madam Prime Minister