Maya Angelou

Dr. Maya Angelou was a remarkable and accomplished woman, honored for her literary works, civil rights activism, and diverse skills that include film, dance, music, and drama. She was born Marguerite Annie Johnson in St. Louis, Missouri, on April 4, 1928 into a traditional African-American family. She and her brother (who had a stutter and nicknamed her 'Maya', for the Maya Indians) were sent to live with her grandparents in Stamps, Arkansas, after her parents divorced. There they experienced the horrors of racism, but Angelou was nurtured by her grandmother and her family's African-American culture. Soon she and her brother were again living with their mother, this time in San Francisco. She was passionate about the performing arts from a young age, and as a teenager attended San Francisco's Labor School for dance and drama. She dropped out to work as a cable car conductor, a job which distinguished her as the first female African American to do so. Angelou returned to school and bore a son right after she graduated, making her a single mother at sixteen. While working to support herself and her child, Angelou never lost sight of her dreams.

Angelou married a Greek sailor in 1952, a marriage that did not last long. She used an abbreviation of her husband's last name, Angelopoulos, to form her stage name, Maya Angelou, the name she used in all her work the rest of her life. In the mid-1950s Angelou was able to do various perfomances, including a tour through Europe in the opera Porgy and Bess, studied modern dance, and recorded an album. In 1960 she moved to Africa with her son, living in Egypt and Ghana for four years. There she wrote and edited for African newspapers, taught music and drama at University of Ghana, and mastered several European and African languages.

In 1964, Angelou returned to the United States with Malcolm X, although he was assassinated shortly thereafter and their Organization for African American Unity fell apart. She began working with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and was again devastated when he was also assassinated. To ease the pain of Dr. King's death, Angleou began writing, culminating in her popular autobiographical work, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, published in 1970. After the success of her first work, she went on to write highly acclaimed poetry and prose. Angelou was also a talented screenwriter and producer for both film and television. Her political presence remained active as well, as she served on two presidential committees and won two presidential awards, although these are only two of the myriad honors and degrees that have been bestowed upon her. These many honors reflect not only the talents of Dr. Maya Angelou, but also the love and passion she brought to her work and the people she still influences.

Angelou died on the morning of May 28, 2014, according to a family statement. She was found by her nurse. Although Angelou had reportedly been in poor health and had canceled recent scheduled appearances, she was working on another book, an autobiography about her experiences with national and world leaders.