to use "all lawful means" to upset the Supreme Courts 1954 desegregation ruling. In 1957, Ku Klux Klansmen accused Alabama grocery-chain truck driver Willie Edwards, 25, of having made remarks to a white woman and forced him at pistol point January 23 to jump to his death from a bridge into the Alabama River. His body was found down river in late April. In 1959, Atlanta integrated its buses January 21 but the governor of Georgia asked citizens to continue "voluntary" segregation. In 1963, four black Alabama schoolchildren were killed and 19 people injured September 15 when a bomb exploded at Birminghams 16th Street Baptist Church while 200 were attending Sunday services. The deaths provoked racial riots, police dogs were used to attack civil rights demonstrators, and two black schoolboys were killed later the same day. In 1964, an Atlanta restaurateur closed his restaurant rather than submit to federal government orders that he serve blacks as well as whites. His opposition to integration propelled him into the governorship of Georgia in 1967, and when he was unable to succeed himself, he continued as lieutenant governor. He passed out pickax handles on the street in front of his restaurant to partisans who would strike any blacks who try to enter. This is the world in which Maya Angelou grew up. She was born Marguerite Johnson in St. Louis, Missouri. In the sixties, at the request of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., she became the northern coordinator for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. In 1974, she was appointed by Gerald Ford to the Bicentennial Commission and later by Jimmy Carter to the Commission for International Woman of the Year. In 1993, she wrote and delivered the poem, On the Pulse of the Morning, at the inauguration of President Clinton at his request. She has also written, produced, directed, and starred in productions for stage, film, and television. Her most famous performance was probably in Roots on Broadwa...
