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Angelou on Michelle: Welcome the 'Real Deal'

Poet celebrates future first lady as 'the real deal'

By Wesley Oliver, Newser Staff

Posted Jan 18, 2009 10:52 AM CST

(Newser) – North Carolina, the state that gave us Jesse Helms and more than a few Klan members, went wild for Michelle Obama at a September rally as a stunned Maya Angelou watched, the poet recalls in the Washington Post. People of all races gave a thunderous welcome to the next first lady, who Angelou calls “the real deal,” borrowing the phrase from her pal Oprah.

Angelou didn’t really know Obama, but they chatted before the event, and “I was completely won over,” she writes. Obama “neither postured nor preened. She said what she thought and said it clearly, without bombast.” The crowd was impressed, too: the predominantly white audience greeted her husband's inclusive message with shouts of, “You go, girl!” “Many believe that this time, our nation has been blest,” Angelou concludes.

[Images (6)]

[Videos (1)]

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Oprah Winfrey told Maya Angelou that Michelle Obama is "the real deal." (AP Photo/Elise Amendola, File)

Michelle Obama, wife of Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., gestures while speaking to supporters at a rally at Capital University in Columbus, Ohio. (AP Photo/Paul Vernon)

Michelle Obama works the rope line after delivering a speech in Gainesville, Fla. (AP Photo/The Gainesville Sun, Aaron Daye)

In this Jan. 20, 1993, photo, President Clinton gets ready to hug poet Maya Angelou on Capitol Hill in Washington, after she recited a poem, "On the Pulse of the Morning" for his inauguration. (AP Photo/Amy Sancetta)

Maya Angelou, 80, says she'll be at her home in Winston-Salem, NC, when Barack Obama takes the oath of office. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert, File)

Michelle and Barack Obama greet the crowd at the North Carolina State University arena May 6, 2008 in Raleigh, NC. (Getty Images)

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Poet and author Dr. Maya Angelou introduces Michelle Obama, at a Women for Obama rally in Greensboro, North Carolina. (BarackObamadotcom)

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Over the past five decades, our national spirit has ebbed, our self-confidence has waned. The presence of Barack Obama seems to return us to our national motto: "Yes, I can. I am an American." - Maya Angelou, the Washington Post

Sen. Jessie Helms appeared to rule the state of North Carolina from 1973 to 2003. He appeared to speak for all white Carolinians. Yet what I had just seen was Michelle Obama captivating an audience of white Carolinians. - Maya Angelou, the Washington Post

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Angelou on Michelle: Welcome the 'Real Deal'