Michelle Obama speech at Maya Angelou Memorial

Here is Michelle Obama's emotional speech at the Maya Angelou Memorial held at wake Forest University on 06/04/14

Maya Angelou reading her poem "Abundant Hope" (2011)

In honor of the late Maya Angelou here is a 2011 recording of her at a ceremony honoring black women civil rights leaders reading her poem titled "Abundant Hope" in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Rest in peace Maya we love you and will miss you!

Maya Angelou explains her recent health issue.

American icon and poet Maya Angelou had to back out of a Major League Baseball Civil Rights Game ceremony due to health issues. She left a post on her Facebook page giving an explanation for not being able to attend.

On her Facebook page she posted:

Post by Maya Angelou.

While she does not give any details on what the illness was it is great to read that she is getting better each day.

George Cook AfricanAmericanReports.com

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie wins US National Critics Book Prize

Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie has won the US National Critics Book Prize for her novel Americanah. The writer’s work tells the story of a Nigerian woman who moves to the US to pursue a college education.

In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, the author said her book drew on her own experiences as an African living in the US, particularly with African Americans.

“I don’t know race in the way an African American knows race… Sometimes it takes an outsider to see something about your own reality that you don’t,” she said.

Synopsis of Americanah:

A story of love and race centered around a young man and woman from Nigeria who face difficult choices and challenges in the countries they come to call home.

As teenagers in a Lagos secondary school, Ifemelu and Obinze fall in love. Their Nigeria is under military dictatorship, and people are leaving the country if they can. Ifemelu—beautiful, self-assured—departs for America to study. She suffers defeats and triumphs, finds and loses relationships and friendships, all the while feeling the weight of something she never thought of back home: race. Obinze—the quiet, thoughtful son of a professor—had hoped to join her, but post-9/11 America will not let him in, and he plunges into a dangerous, undocumented life in London.

Years later, Obinze is a wealthy man in a newly democratic Nigeria, while Ifemelu has achieved success as a writer of an eye-opening blog about race in America. But when Ifemelu returns to Nigeria, and she and Obinze reignite their shared passion—for their homeland and for each other—they will face the toughest decisions of their lives.

Fearless, gripping, at once darkly funny and tender, spanning three continents and numerous lives, Americanah is a richly told story set in today’s globalized world: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s most powerful and astonishing novel yet.