Poet Maya Angelou Remembers Nelson Mandela For His Remarkable Courage
WHITFIELD: People around the world are remembering Nelson Mandela's remarkable life. Among them, renown poet Maya Angelou. In today's "American Journey," she tells CNN's Anderson Cooper that one word dominates her thoughts about Mandela, courage.</s>ANDERSON COOPER, HOST, CNN'S "AC360": Dr. Angelou, I watched the poem that you wrote and recited in memory of President Mandela, and one of the things that struck me, that you said you refer to him as David, not just South Africa's David, but as our David, the world's David, and our Gideon.</s>MAYA ANGELOU, POET AND AUTHOR: The truth is we have many of our son, Davids, a man, a woman, we can all be that particular person who has enough courage to stand up and say, "I am one, I have enough courage that dares to love. Now, that's what Nelson Mandela was about. He had enough courage to say you may call me, I am a person that dares to care for other human beings. And you see, one of the reasons I said this to you some time ago when I had pleasure of speaking to you, Anderson Cooper, I like the fact that you have enough courage to stand up. Courage is the most important of all the virtues.</s>COOPER: The thing about Mandela that I find so extraordinary in reading his history is from a very young age he had the courage to see beyond his own situation. I mean, he was born into a regal family. He had access to education. He could have stayed in his community, but he saw -- he started to see himself as an African, not just as a Hossa. He started to see himself and see how the white regime was dividing people by stressing ethnic differences and he was able to overcome that. I think that's such an extraordinary thing.</s>ANGELOU: It's true. It's true. He was a courageous human being and full of the idea that he was on a journey, and he had something to do, he had a place to be, and it's fabulous to realize that there's an old spiritual, old gospel song which is I'm on my journey now, Mount Zion, on my journey now, Mount Zion, and I wouldn't take nothing, Mount Zion, from my journey. Mount Zion. He was on the journey and he knew it and he had something to do. And this is what each of us has, if we have enough courage, we can say I'm on a journey, I have a charge to keep.</s>COOPER: You were living in Cairo with your husband, South African freedom fighter when you first met Nelson Mandela. I understand your husband and Mandela were something of rivals, but that didn't matter to Mandela. Tell us about that experience.</s>ANGELOU: They were rivals. But when Nelson Mandela came to visit, he never joined the argumentative people. He was simply kind to everybody.</s>COOPER: When you heard that he was gone, what first went through your mind?</s>ANGELOU: Well, I felt lost in a way. We've been friends so long, from the early '60s, and I felt lost. I didn't know quite what to say. I mean, it was a piece of news that we've known would come, but it threw me, and I don't know if I'm over it quite yet.</s>COOPER: Dr. Maya Angelou, I appreciate you spending some moments with us tonight. Thank you so much.</s>ANGELOU: I thank you very much, Mr. Anderson Cooper. Thank you. God bless your heart.</s>WHITFIELD: That was Maya Angelou remembering Nelson Mandela. Country music legend Willie Nelson known for making music to make a statement, but now he is sending a message by not singing at SeaWorld. We'll tell you why next!