The Loving Reason Maya Angelou Didn’t Celebrate Her Birthday For 30 Years

smiling maya angelou
Briona Lamback
November 14, 2024

Maya Angelou spent most of April 4, 1968, in the kitchen of her Harem apartment. She was fixing her favorite dishes and preparing to welcome her friends to celebrate her 40th birthday. But then tragedy struck.

One of Angelou's friends came early. "I was cooking dinner for my party when my sister-friend came in, and she asked me if I had listened to the radio or television?" Her friend’s next words broke Angelou's heart into pieces.

Martin Luther King Jr was dead. "Life stopped for me for a few days. It was terrible. I couldn't believe that this great man, this great dream, this great dreamer, this person who dared to love everybody, could be killed," Angelou later said. For the next 30 years, Angelou refused to celebrate her birthday.

For more than 30 years, she and Coretta Scott King would meet, call, or send each other flowers on that day. Though Angelou was grief-stricken, the way she shared her love with Scott King is a necessary reminder that grief exists because we love.

When love feels like it's gone, it never is. We have always beautifully found new ways and reasons to love our people beyond this world.

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