US President Barack Obama has led the tributes to Maya Angelou, describing the poet, author and activist as “one of the brightest lights of our time”.
He hailed Angelou, who has died aged 86, as “a brilliant writer, a fierce friend and a truly phenomenal woman”.
She made her name with the memoir I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, which charted a childhood of oppression and abuse in the Deep South in the 1930s.
Her family described her as “a warrior for equality, tolerance and peace”.
Former President Bill Clinton, who invited Angelou to read at his 1993 inauguration, said America had lost a national treasure and he and wife Hillary had lost “a beloved friend”.
“The poems and stories she wrote and read to us in her commanding voice were gifts of wisdom and wit, courage and grace,” he said.
Others paying tribute included civil rights campaigner Reverend Jesse Jackson, who wrote on Twitter: “The renaissance woman has made a peaceful transition. She acted, sang, danced & taught She used poetry as a road for peace.”
Her career had many outlets, straddling television, theatre, film, children’s books and music.
Angelou was also a prominent civil rights activist and a friend of Martin Luther King and Malcolm X.
