thanks for joining us. i'm thomas drayton in new york. will be back with another hour of news at 11:00 pm eastern, 9:00 pm pacific. stay tuned, "consider this" is on now. a major foreign policy speech from president obama, how he sees america's new role as the leader. a personal take from the v.a. scandal from a vet refusing no -- receiving no help when he was at breaking point. an ivy league student reporting a sexual assault. the college agree is happened but does almost nothing. >> and the death of mary angelou. we have memories. i'm antonio mora, and here is more on what is on "consider

this". this". pa . >> secretary of defence chuck hagel ordered a sweeping review of the military's health system. >> secretary eric shinseki offered me his resignation. >> it's not just one person. >> mary angelou - author, activist and civil rights act visit has died. >> that had something to do in this world. after months of accusations of feeble leadership and handling of international crisis and conflict. president obama sought to counter his critics in a commencement speech at the u.s. academy of west point, saying while america would take op challenges unilaterally when national security demanded it, working through multinational institutions provided a force

multiplier that made america stronger. particularly in response to russia's meddling in ukraine, and that terror oix was the most -- terrorism was the most direct threat. while al qaeda's leadership had been decimated, new strategies and resources were needed to defeat. >> i call on congression to support a counterterrorist sponsorship fund of up to $5 million. to train the front lines. >> the president proclaimed his belief in american exceptionalism and leadership, insisting that america had rarely been stronger relative to the rest of the world. >> our military has no fear. the odds of a direct threat against us of any nation are low much they do not come close to the dangers faced during the cold war. >> for more i'm joined from

washington d.c. by ambassador james jeffrey, ambassador to iraq, deputy national security advise, and with me in new york is christopher dicky, it is good to have you both back on the show. did you hear anything new from the president in wednesday's season, aside from his call for billions for new counterterrorism partnership which sounded like new money for old allies. >> i'm happy he took that decision. nation, he did say that he would up assistance to rebels, and do it through the u.s. military, rather than through intelligence agencies, and you have to take this in context with this decision, which is a semipositive decision to keep troops on longer. you are seeing minor shifts in the president obama line of how he looks at the world and america's role in it. >> talking about counterterrorism and the threat.

we talked many times about al qaeda's expanded and diffusion around the world, and how that made it stronger. during the election it was all about getting rid of the central leadership and not much talk about affiliates. you wrote a peace "america's enebbing yemen fail", and terrorists from pakistan to nigeria are taunting governments trying to hunt them down, in most cases with america's help. >> they are. they feel the initiative is with them. whether we talk about boko haram in nigeria, or al qaeda, or al qaeda and mag rab in north africa. all of them feel that they have the initiative, and that the united states doesn't have the commitment to send in troops to stop them. which is true, which is what obama was saying "we will not send in troops to stop them." he is right about that. but he can't get on message

enough to make it clear that the united states is determined to stop the groups over time. >> that message is important. "the washington post" came out with a brutal editorial on wednesday calling the foreign policy consistently bad, after the afghanistan pull-back that you referred to. they mentioned the pull-out of iraq, the decisions to not intervene militarily in syria, the libya intervption without leaving drops there to help out. how do you see it? >> i agree with "the washington post" editorial. all of these are tough decisions. taken by themselves, you can make a case for president obama's position in any and all of them. taken as a system, a series of decision, they are worrisome. we have threats that are greater than al qaeda. al qaeda needs to be combatted. i see the growing power of russia, china, the continued

mess in the middle east. taken together, as an even greater existential threat, requiring military and multilateral economic action. >> what obama understands is that the american people are fed up with wars. they would have been happy if we got out of iraq sooner or afghanistan sooner. the basic attitude is not isolationist. and obama argues you can't be isolationist. american troops will not fix everything in the world. steams other countries -- sometimes other countries will have to help us or do it themselves. >> he seems to be taking a middle ground. >> that's a leadership problem. that is that people do not want to listen to middle yound. they wap -- ground. they want to be inspired or retreat. they don't want to adjust things as circumstances require. >> ambassador, you brought the

multilateral issue. president obama said if we don't lead, no one will. much of the talk is about collection action, multilateral. what is america's role here? >> well, that's all good. as chris said, we do have a problem with the american people. i don't think it's as soars as it was when -- as soars as it was when we had -- as serious as it was when we had hundreds in iraq. if we look for a middle ground, i take bill clinton, he worked with nato, the u.n. desert fox, kosovo, and bosnia. those were major operations, but not at the level of afghanistan or iraq. they did involve america mobilizing international community and using military force. this is what is missing from the president's discussion. it's all or nothing. i give you iraq or i'll molize people in the u.n. to issue declaration and pass resolutions. >> the ambassador is rite about

the clinton administration. the important thing to remember is the actions were taken by iraq, afghanistan and before the exhaustion that people feel about the wars. >> republicans are talking strongly about the president and how he's promoting weakness, not strength. senator bob corker. he said when you see putin doing what he's doing, china stepping out doing the things they are doing, is it because they see a president who i think they don't believe will back up statements with actions? >> well you know the republicans never saw a tax they didn't hate or a war they didn't like. that's more of the same. they basically are saying - they don't say how you pay for it. are they going to back a $5 billion fund to fight terrorism. i doubt it. the war fought in iraq cost 2.5 billion a week. i don't think that these kinds of political sniping will help.

>> the problem lies with obama. he needs to find a way to inspire american people and articulate global policy that is a narrative that people believe in, not a situational response to event. >> a positive narrative was about ukraine, saying that the multilateral efforts there have worked and that they have improved the situation there. do you agree? >> absolutely. but, and there's always a but with this administration. taking the digs to pull all the -- decision to pull all the troops out of afghanistan will be seep by vladimir putin has an example that the president will not see things through if there's political pressure. he will apply that to the situation in the baltics and elsewhere in n.a.t.o.'s eastern borders, i fear. well down in the ukraine, but it has to be put in global perspective. >> do you think the russian or

chinese ambassador will rethink things? >> they will think that the americans are still reluctant to use military force. you cited american exhaustion. i'm exhausted. i and my family spent seven years there. the american people are commaufed with stupid long- -- exhausted with stupid long-term troops without nation or casualties. they were not too exhausted when obama wept into libya, i don't think they would have been if we wept into syria. >> a lot of lat eachos wondering -- latinos wondering where the president is on many issues in latin america. thank you both. in the wars of an iraq war vet rap whose experiences with the -- veteran whose experiences began in his childhood as the

son of a war veteran. soldiers are expendable in war, and veterans are expendable when they return. i spoke with this man about the v.a. he wrote for the "new york times" and san francisco croppingicle. the scandal over prolonged weight times and treatments put the failures of the v.a. op center stage for the country. you said it didn't surprise you because you had to deal with issues your whole life. if this is common knowledge, something going on forever, why did it take this scandal to call attention to it? >> we don't care about what happens to our veterans, we want them out of site, out of mind. you know, we want them for the welcome home hero ceremony, but we forget and don't care about what happens once the ceremony is over.

>> it's an important commitment to our veterans, when you see what is going on, it's horrifying. you write that you thought it was a miracle that you survived iraq, and you think it's a miracle you survived the v.a., because you had suicidal thoughts when you returned and you rab into a -- ran into a brick wall trying to get help from the v.a. >> several times it was a low, dark point in my life. it was at a point where i was "i need to go to the v.a. and get help." when i made the phone call, it's like they putting on hold, when they cabinet through, or transfer you to the wrong person. when you timely get through they tell you it's almost two months for an appointment to see someone, and, you know, when i say is that the soonest you can see me. and they quay "yes, that's the soapest", saying they have -- "they say "yes, that's the

soon"", saying they have soldiers coming back from the war, and they don't have people to take care of the new veterans enrolling for help. >> you wrote when you saw someone, and you had a cup of coffee, and the rehabilitation you got from the coffee was incredible. >> yes, i mean - i remember that time. i had a friend that said "you need to go to the v.a., maybe they can help you." from previous experiences i knew not to call them, they would put you on hold. i went to the emergency room, saw someone, had a coffee and the lady was like "how much coffee do you dripping in a day?" -- drink in a day?" first i said "i don't know, maybe a pot, two pots. she told me to cut back on coffee and come back in a month or so and see how i feel. i was, like, lady, you don't get it, i'm here because i'm having weird thought about jumping off a brim or something -- bridge or

something. i was i need medication, anti-anxiety medication, something, and she was telling me the story about, you know, how they used to prescribe pills to veterans, but a lot of them would get hooked on the pills, or they would commit suicide or do something, so, you know, they were cutting back on giving people pills. and i remember "you got to be kidding me", i walked out worse off than when i entered. it was, "what am i going to do now?" i had good experiences, but that was a point where i was like "you got to be kidding me.". >> you say if you want attention from the v.a., the only hope to get it quickly is to go to the emergency room. >> that's my advice to veterans. if you are in bad shape, don't bother calling them, go down will. >> and your experience of the v.a. began before your return from iraq. your father is a vietnam vet,

and you saw as a child how ipp efficient the v.a. could be when you needed to be treated back then. >> yes, my memories of the v.a. is waiting in the lobby for hours and hours, sitting with my dad. he doesn't like waiting in the lobby either. he wants me to - one story i have, sick, the doctor asked me on a scale of one to 10 how bad are you. i was 6 or 7, and put my name on the list, and dad is like you have to tell them you are a 10 or 12 to be seep, otherwise we'll site around all day. that's pretty much what happened, we sat all day waiting to be seep. >> you said the scandal may be the best thing to happen to veterans, are you hopeful that this could be what it takes to get veterans the care they need and deserve. >> i don't know about hopeful, this raises hell to get people appingy and pissed off to do

something -- people angry and pissed off about how we treat our veterans. it's pathetic if you are in bad shape and you go to the v.a. and they say we can't see you for a couple of months or 8-is it weeks -- 8-12 weeks, we ask a lot of our soldiers, they go out, multiple deployment. we owe it to them to make sure they are treated. >> we do, and i hope that we can be hopeful that something will be done. thank you very much for joining us. >> think you. "consider this" will be right back. the mass murder

barbara, and the killers misonly nist rants triggered social media. it referred to a culture of violence against women that too many men safety. a brown university student started a fight for justice so more women will not suffer what she says she went through at the school. she has filed two federal complaints against brown claiming that the school broke the law in its handling of a

sexual assault case. she said she suffered a spinal injury after a brown student, with whom she had a brief relationship, became violent when she said no to sex. that student claimed the contact was consensual. a university disciplinary panel ruled he was responsible, and actions that could be reasonably expected to result in physical harm to a person. his punishment - a year's inspection. i'm joined in the studio by a political reporter for the "the daily beast," who has been covering the story. before talking about the brown situation, i want to talk about what happened in santa barbara, and the yes-all women hash tag that came out. within a day of the misonlionism this exploded on the internet. more than a million tweets, women share experiences of how they have been victimized from

the workforce to sexual assault. this hit a nerve. >> it has. a lot of women see other women share their stories, and for the first time they were comfortable coming out with their stories that they faced. you know, it's difficult because if it's a tragic thing that sparked this mott, it's -- movement, but it's an important discussion, and i'm glad it's happening. >> let's turn to the brown story. you quote senator gillibrand saying: >> talking about sexual assault, and the senator said it should not be the cost of a college investigation to get raped. we have done a lot on campus sexual assault, and one thing that struck me reading your article on the brown case is there's no obligation to report this to law enforcement. >> that is lost on many people. people think if you hear about a

crime or report it to your college, that the school has to go to police, because that makes sense. unless the state that you are in requires felonies to be reported to police, schools don't have an obligation, not under title nine or the cleary act, the two main law that is reality to this. >> in your piece you mention there's no way a murder would be treated this way, so a sexual assault is not treated in the same way. >> you wouldn't have a med student do an autopsy and think it's okay. that is happening with cases of sexual assault. students sit on the panel. there's a weird investigation process where there's no rape kit down in most cases. it's not how we think of a real investigation being done. and victims suffer because of it, and so are the accused in many cases. >> what do you argue, that people should have the right to report it to the college and say "i don't want it reported to the

police", but maybe the victim can opt out, but the college should have an affirmative obligation, unless the victim opts out. >> what is clear to me is it's necessary for victims to be told in the beginning, before they are victims, when they get to college, that you need to tell students that they have the option to go to police and report a crime like this. no matter what, you are not going to get real justice through a university system. >> what happened in this case. the estimates are one in five women are sexually assaulted, and a low percentage, 12% report this, that is what happened in this case. looepa did not -- lena did not report it until days after it happened. >> she went to brown, she used the university system to get justice. >> it took her days to do that. >> it took her days. that is common when you are victimized in that way, it's common to take a few days to process and figure out what you want to do.

she did not go to police, she chose to get justice through the university system. she would say it failed her. >> she said "i would have to testify: >> that's one thin she was considering about whether she should go and report this. the white house had a task force coming up with investigations about what colleges should do to improve the situation. 55 universities are being vetted for the way they are or are not dealing with it. >> it may be 56. lena filed two complaints for violating title 9 and the cleary act. >> what are you saying? >> schools are sweeping it under the rug, because it doesn't look good to have a hive percentage of rapes reported. i was at a panel senator mccaskill did, and an issue that she talked about was if a school

has a low rate of reported rapes, it's a bad sign. they are probably not doing their job with title in my opinion, to make sure that they are being addressed. >> in there isn't discrimination. >> yes. >> a couple more questions. the panel at brown found serious violations, you know, and then the student only got a 2-year suspension reduced to a one-year suspension. you think how can this be possible. >> right. the panel made a recommendation, but it was not taken into consideration, importantly. he was given a one-year suspension. the real issue is that that is the worst that will happen to someone in the university system. there's no way they would give someone gaol time. this is the problem. people are not told this in advance - if you go through the university system that, is it, it's as bad as it will be for the accused. >> the flip i had is that the accused faces consequences, and

to be deill adds advocate - and there are false accusation, i am sure they are the minority, and i'm not saying that that is the case here. if that happens, that can suffer tremendously, and have consequences. i guess the question is should it go to law enforcement of the issues in any case. >> to the pptment about the -- appointment about the accused. they cannot be found guilty of rape or sexual misconduct. it's not fair to the accused to be called that name having not been found guilty of the crime. i think that the only answer, as far as i see it is for universities to do their job under title 9, but make sure that students know if they do want justice, they need to go to law enforcement. >> there is momentum on capitol hill to improve matters at universities across the countries, and let's hope some

action gets down, because you read about too many cases that leaves you wondering how in the world can this be possible. >> thank you very much. >> turning to education, and a legal battle in florida. the question at the heart of that struggle. do kids do better in school and be better prepared for life when learning in single-sex classrooms or do both do better when learning in co-ed classes. the american of civil university yi union filled against tampa because it brated some single-sex classrooms saying "by training teachers that boys and girls learn differently and teaching boys and girls differently the district is using stereo take place creating a curriculum that is harmful to all students", i'm joined by a psychology professor. she co-authored a study

comparing the effects of single-sex and co-ed schooling on students for the american psychological association. your study is a meta-analysis, a study of studies including more than a million and a half kids, and you found no zant voping to single- -- significant advantage to single-sex education. >> we had data from 1.6 million students. k through 12. these studies - i should say for lispers not fam -- listeners that are not familiar, metaanalysis is used in psychology, education and medicine, actually, when we have multiple studies of the same question. we use it to put together all the studies that compared kids m single-sex schooling and coeducational schooling. we found no advantages for single-sex schooling for a variety of the outcomes, including maths performance,

attitude, test scores and so on. there weren't any advantages. >> where do we get to the conventional wisdom that girls benefit from single-sex schooling because studies have argued that, and we have seen tv hidden camera vagss that show -- investigations that show boys raising their hands, being more aggressive and louder, forcing teachers to pay attention to them more than to the girls. is there nothing to that? >> what we need to do, of course, is improve coeducation, and we have ways of doing that to get boys and girls working better, more cooperatively. there are problems in a single-sex problems. sometimes people talk about boys being distracted by girls, but if you have ever been in an all-boys classroom or sports team or anything like that, you know boys can distract each other a lot. they poke, prod and bump.

>> i know how crazy boys can be in a classroom. >> exactly. >> there's a national association for single-sex public education that lists studies supporting advantages to single-sex education, saying it breaks down storo types, allowing genders to flourish and a study finding south korean boys and girls were more likely to go to clem than those that went to co-ed schools. anything there? >> yes. as for the studies listed on the website, they are cherry-picked. and met ae analysis supercedes those studies, we looked at all studies, and categorised them by quality of the study. studies that show advantages to single sex schooling are - they have a confound with quality of the students and quality of the

schools. they may compare an elite single-sex school with a randomly elected school. the gerls are elite. they'll succeed, it's not a fair comparison. we took quality into account. >> what do you say to the hills borough district. two schools improved dramatically. one school got six years of cs, now it has an a. another that had cs and ds now has a b. they didn't randomly assign kids to single sex and co-ed classrooms and use similar teachers. we know there was a change. often there are novelty effects that we know is true in psychology and education, everyone is buzzed about a phenomenon. i'd like to know whether five years from now they'd show the advantages. they select the best teachers. i'm all for great teachers.

they select the best teachers, they get them buzzed for the programme. they can find some advantages for a small amount of time. i don't think they'll last. there has been, you know, talk or studies about how girls end up being - you know, have fewer leadership possessions when they are in co-ed schools, proportionately, when more boys pd up being leaders in schools, co-ed schools. >> well i think those trends reversed themselves in the last 10 years. steams i think -- sometimes i think we are fighting battles about what happened to girls in the 1960s. the fact is that the majority of high school valla dick torians, girls are thriving, getting better grades than boys. i don't really worry about girls in coeducational schools.

i went to one myself. if we trade on anecdotes as the hills borough district likes to do. i went to one and felt it was wonderful. i went to a coeducational college and felt it was wonderful. >> we'll stay on top of what is going on in florida. good to have you with us. we'll be back with more of "consider this".

college and felt it wa

respect fewer debates rouse more passion in the u.s. than gun chrome. the second amendment consists of a convoluted sentence: did the framers of the constitution mean that every individual has the right to own a gun or has politics twisted the intention of our forefathers. joining us is an thorough, and president of n.y.u.'s center for justice. you do a biography of the second amendment, looking at it throughout our history, talking about its ormg jips at a -- origins at a time where every white male between 16 and 60 had a gun and was a fem ber -- member of a militia. back then there was no gun or

issue about whether there should be an individual right to bear arms. >> this is controversial. the way we looked at the second amendment changed over the years, changed down and over time. the original founders, the way they wrote and looked at it was form a world that was impossible to imagine. as we say, every single white man was required by law to open a gun and bring it in to their militia service. the amendment was written, some were worried that the new united states government, as it was being created would threaten tyranny and threaten the 13 state militias. >> mostly about each militia, each state having a militia and the fear of a federal government that would be tieranical. >> that's right. the british army sailed away a few years before. people say does it protect the individual right or the militia.

in a way the answer is both. it protect the individual right to have a gun, to fulfil the duty to serve in the militia. the question is the militia vanished soon after that. what happened after that. the reality is over time there were a lot of guns, people had guns and throughout the history there were gun laws. gun rights and laws went hand in hand. in the wild west, in damage city, the great frontier town, there was a sign "welcome to dodge city, firearms prohiibility", we had that -- prohibited", we this that through the 20 sth century. >> before getting to the recent developments, you look at the 200 years after the second amendment and say really there wasn't much discussion about it. that, in fact, it was recoveried to as the lost -- referred to as the lost amendment. >> it's an amazing thing. the supreme court didn't rule

that the second amendment didn't give you an individual right to a done until 2008. they ruled 4-times before otherwise, but there weren't thousands of cases, there were some things that people didn't consider all that important when the first federal gun law was being debated in the 1930s. the national rifle association testified about it, in support of it. the witness was asked what about the constitution. do you think there's a problem. they said "we haven't given thought to that question." it's a different time. >> it's change the. >> in the 1970s. >> yes. >> when the n.r.a. dramatically changed its mission. >> that's right. >> the n.r.a. is around for a long time. it was started by veterans of the civil war, civil war officers who were are worried that the union troops showed poor marksmanship. it was to train people how to shoot. it was known as a sportsman's

organization representing hunter's interests and in the 1970s, as a backlash against the liberal 1960s. the n.r.a. changed its mission. it was tape over in an an -- taken over in an annual meeting called the revolt in sip sip ate. a new, activist group took over the organization, put in new leadership, and instead of being focussed on the interest of hunters, it was a constitutional crusade about the second amendment, and against gun laws. >> chief justice burger was a conservative justice, referring to individual rights to open guns as a -- own guns as a fraud. that changed as the n.r.a. lobbied and it became a discussion, and anthone schellia rites his response, and that

changed everything. >> he was respond k, and the supreme court was responding to a t-book campaign waged by the n.r.a. and other gun rights supporters in the 1970s, to change the way we saw the provision, and constitutional law. there was a lot of people who wept back and looked -- went back and looked at the error and said "it moons an individual -- moons an individual right", and they moved public opinion. it shifted, it's a common view. >> and then eventually the common law. >> it's rarely turned around. at this point there have been a bunch of efforts to restrict gun rights within the supreme court's decision. is that what we'll see. we are seeing legislatures taking action, but courts deciding that some are more constitutional, and some aren't. seems we'll be in for a long back and forth.

>> alexis, a writer of america said sooner or later every question in america wind up a lawsuit. that was in the 1830s. certainly that would be right these days too. what happened is this: on the one hand gun rites forces are on the march. there's laws in many places, new laws allowing people to carry weapons. in georgia, there's a law making it so you can carry a gun knirl, on the one hand. on the other hand, the supreme court, when it ruled there was an individual right, they said there can be limitations, not everywhere can carry a gun at every time. doze possess of courts, federal courts, have considered some of these issues since the heller case, since swathe. and overwhelmingly they have upheld the existing gun laws, saying that yes, there's a right, but there's commonsense

limitations, so it may well be that maybe the heller case did gun control, forces a favour by drawing a line and saying, you know what, the gun grabbers, as they might call them, are not coming to take away your guns, what are the rules, who can have a gun, how can we make sure there's safety, by the supreme court hasn't spoken again. it will be debated at the highest level. >> it will be interested to see how the biography evolves in years to come. the framers who were great writers didn't do a good job. leaving confusion to rein for 200 years. >> they did no favors on the commas and punctuation on this one. >> the book is "the second amendment - a biography." "consider this" will be right back. ideas, your concerns. >> all these folks are making a whole lot of money.

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how the biography evolves "consider this" will be righ o

north america's biggest city for real estate. it's not in the u.s. the "financial post" reports the average home price in vancouver is $33,000. the canadian city has been hot with a 40% jump in home sales from a year ago. san francisco is the second costliest, one of three cities in california in the top five. canada has three in the top six. vancouver's dominance may be because of huge chinese investments, an example of how some cities benefit from a global marketplace for real estate. the new yorker reported on a group of economist who found super-star cities. those cities draw large amounts of foreign investments, showing how the rich follow the rich around the world. international investors acted for 68.2 billion worth of real

estate investments in america in 12 month, ending in march of last year, 6.3% of a title in the u.s. the focus is in florida, california, arizona, and texas. the knight frank wealth report found differences in what your money would buy. $1 million - nothing in monaco. 160 square feet, the size of a big walk-in closet. you can get twice that for a property in new york. that's about the size of a studio. unbelievable. we'll be back with more "consider this." >> racial profiling >> sometimes they ask questions... sometimes they just handcuff people... >> deporting dreams... destroying lives... >> this state is literally redefining what it means to be a criminal alien fault lines al jazeera america's hard hitting... >> they're locking the doors... >> ground breaking... >> we have to get out of here...

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>> this, is what we do. >> al jazeera america. >> when ag hopeful in the national psyche dies. those words written by mary angelou about a friend could have been written about her, one of america's greatest poets. she passed away at age 86 at her home in north carolina. her historic life rising from poverty and seg re kags to become one of the influential women was varied as accomplished - poet, single rights activist, sippinger, dancer, author, actor. in 1969 her memoir "i know why

the caged bird sings" set in the american south grappled with racism and rape, bringing her wide acclaim. so, too, her appearance at bill clinton's inauguration, for which she composed a poem entitled "on the pulse of the morning." >> come, you may stand upon my back and face your did not destiny. seek no haven in my shadow." >> her words had meaning for a vast audience. she posted her last public thoughts on twitter on friday reading: joige us now from -- joining us from los angeles is a friend and collaborator of mary angelou, legendary act res diane carol, who starred in the film version of "i know why the caged bird sings," and a tv film written by mary angelou "sister, sister", great to have you with us, my condolences it must be a

sad day for you and bhap americans. you were her friend, worked with her on stage and played her mother in "i know why the caged bird sings." what is it about her that you will remember most? >> i would think it would be her humanity. and her courage. if she believed in something, don't argue. she has to take it through life and experience until it is as she sees it. . >> the first time i saw meyer was here, and i think it was called ye-little club. in beverly hills. it held, maybe, 15-20 people. i saw that she was going to be there.

i went, and i stood in the back really nervous about how this creature was going to find her path in this part of california. and the music started, and she came through the door. this tall magnificent woman, no shoes. walked to the stage, with, i think, drums. i would say drums. and she turned and faced us. and we were absolutely in the palm of her hand for the next two hours. some songs, some stories, she was incredible. >> one of the things people forget, because of her accomplishments, is that she was a terrific performer, an acts res, sippinger, dancer. she was a song writer. she played a grandmother in the

television series roots. she won six gram ris, nominated for a tony. what an incredible life. >> yes, she was not to be ignored. everything about her, her presence - it was a meaning unto itself, she walked in the room, it wasn't necessary for her to do anything. it was still going to turn and watch her. i was doing something a few years ago in canada, and received a message from her that a car would pick me up at a certain time, and i should come to this place. i did. i did. i did exactly as she told me to do, and she came out and she took me by the hand, took me into the little studio, much like this, and we talked for a lopping, long time -- long, long time about mother hood, children, men. life. and i still don't know exactly where i was, and we hugged and

she put me back in the car, and i wept back. the only thing i received was the driver saying, "ms mary angelou told me to come and pick you up." but i trusteded her. it's not easy for me to say that about anyone, but i trusted her completely. >> a wonderful moment, late in life on the oprah winfrey show playing a clip of her in 1952. >> movie reel: mary angelou. [ ♪ music ] ♪ loy, lo, lowie, lowie ♪ joy, joy, joy ♪ mo and jo ran the store

♪ heading for... > it was great to watch her face as she watched that. you know, she had a tremendous impact on so many different levels, especially on african american women writers, starting a wave of black feminist fiction - tony alison, walker inspired by her. i am sure she took a lot of pride by that. >> yes. she loved to pull people into her ring of greatness. she was happy for those who acknowledged that she was the leader of the pack, and we all became kind of a sisterhood. there's one over here in san francisco, and someone there in florida. we just - we could call each other and say, you know, oma friend of meyers, and that's all we needed to hear. >> she endured a rough life, hardship, pain, poverty, rape as

a young girl. an incredible story is a woman with an incredible voice, she didn't spoke for -- speak for years after the rape, when her rapist was killed. did she ever talk to you about that? >> no, no. there was really no reason for her to talk about that. she always talked about things that touch you. >> it was part of the movie and the book. >> yes, yes, yes. i played her mother in the film. it was so strange playing her mother. our age difference made it very peculiar, but it was a throw back, really. put, no, i don't remember hearing her talk about what happened. >> a quick time word. what do you think she'd like her legacy to be? >> i think maya knows exactly what her legacy is. she made it slowly, carefully,

planned, and able to communicate. it would have been lovely to have her a little longer. >> she wrote people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will not forget how you made them feel. i doubt anyone will make them forget anything about mary angelou. it's an honour to have you with us, our condolence, i appreciate your time. >> think you very much. >> the show may be over, but the consider continues on the website aljazeera.com/consider-this. and on twitter. see you next time. been connected before. it's a new approach to journalism. this is an opportunity for americans to learn something. we need to know what's going on around the world. we need to know what's going on in our back yard and i think al jazeera does just that.

>> nogales, arizona. a bus has arrived filled with people being deported from the united states. >> right now we're headed to san juan bosco, a shelter here in nogales where the mexican immigration authorities have picked the people who were just deported, they take them there so they have a place to stay on meeir first night back in