Maya Angelou's Journey to Healing and Joy — Black History Month

Maya Angelou was a celebrated author, poet, playwright, actress, director, dancer, professor, and civil rights activist. What many may not know, is that she was also a cannabis enthusiast.

From a childhood marked by unimaginable hardship to being the recipient of more than 50 honorary degrees, Angelou found that cannabis provided stress relief and helped her find joy and levity in life. 

“From a natural stiffness I melted into a grinning tolerance…For the first time, life amused me.”

Of her first encounters with cannabis she writes, “From a natural stiffness I melted into a grinning tolerance. Walking on the streets became high adventure, eating my mother’s huge dinners an opulent entertainment, and playing with my son was side-cracking hilarity. For the first time, life amused me.”  

In the second installment of her autobiography, “Gather Together in My Name,” (the first being “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings), Dr. Angelou writes about using cannabis in her late teens and early 20s. Despite the negative stigma associated with cannabis use at the time, Dr. Angelou paints her cannabis experiences in a positive light: “Smoking grass eased the strain for me. I made a connection at a restaurant nearby. People called it Mary Jane, hash, grass, gauge, weed, pot, and I had absolutely no fear of using it.” 

Maya Angelou at the inauguration of President Clinton

“To love someone takes a lot of courage. So how much more is one challenged when the love is of the same sex and the laws say, ‘I forbid you from loving this person’?”

On top of her famous prose, Dr. Angelou was an activist at heart. In her lifetime, she spoke out in defense of civil and human rights,  documenting the anti-colonial movement in Africa as the only woman editor of the Arab Observer newspaper; she knew Nelson Mandela; W.E.B. Du Bois; and,  joined Malcolm X in planning for an Organization of Afro-American Unity. She marched alongside Gloria Steinem and delivered the inaugural poem for President Bill Clinton. Dr Angelou was also an outspoken advocate of marriage equality, reminding lawmakers, “To love someone takes a lot of courage. So how much more is one challenged when the love is of the same sex and the laws say, ‘I forbid you from loving this person’?”

We can’t say for sure that cannabis influenced Dr. Angelou’s incredible body of work and activism, but it certainly helped ease her stress and amuse her, and perhaps that’s just as good.