Maya Angelou, Langston Hughes, late 1950s (photo Chuck Stewart via USA Today)

Poet and activist Maya Angelou died this morning. She was 86. I first became aware of her when she read her poem "On the Pulse of Morning" at Bill Clinton's inauguration, but her life encompassed far more than the works that made her famous.

Civil rights activist, actor and playwright, club entertainer, and occasionally author banned from library shelves (always a high honor in my opinion), Angelou had more to say than many of the rest of us, and said it so very, very finely. See the wiki.