Angelou understands that part of her role is to be a leader (which encompasses more than the idea of "role model" although it certainly parallels it in many ways this idea) by asking others to be attentive to language. For example, in an interview for the Paris Review, she said:

When I'm writing, I am trying to find out who I am, who we are, what we're capable of, how we feel, how we lose and stand up, and go on from darkness into darkness. I'm trying for that. But I'm also trying for the language. I'm trying to see how it can really sound. I really love language. I love it for what it does for us, how it allows us to explain the pain and the glory, the nuances and the delicacies of our existence. And then it allows us to laugh, allows us to show wit. Real...
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