An icon of Black culture, Maya Angelou has carved out a space in American history that will be recognized for a long time to come. Her autobiographical writing style gave the world her best-known book, “I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings.” Her works center on racism, identity, family, and travel. She won dozens of awards and was presented with more than 50 honorary doctoral degrees. Over the course of her career, she published seven autobiographies, three books of essays, several books of poetry, and is credited with a list of plays, movies, and television shows spanning more than 50 years.
Marguerite Ann Johnson, known professionally as Maya Angelou, was born in St. Louis, Missouri on April 4, 1928. Her parents' volatile relationship and divorce resulted in Angelou living part-time with her grandmother. At the age of seven, she was sent back to her mother and was raped by her mother’s boyfriend. She told her brother, and her attacker was arrested and spent a night in jail. After he was released, he was murdered, likely by her uncles, and Angelou, believing her confession had killed him, became mute for six years.
Angelou was interested in writing from an early age and kept a diary and wrote essays and poetry. She also loved drama and dance and worked closely with Martha Graham, the “mother of modern dance,” and Alvin Ailey, an innovative African-American choreographer and activist. She joined the Harlem Writers Guild in 1959 and became active in the Civil Rights Movement. She also served as the northern coordinator of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, a prominent African American advocacy organization, and acted in the landmark off-Broadway production of “The Blacks” by French playwright Jean Genet.
Angelou later moved to Cairo, Egypt, and worked as editor of The Arab Observer. She lived in Ghana during the decolonization period and taught at the University of Ghana’s School of Music and Drama. While abroad, she became fluent in Spanish, Italian, French, Arabic, and Fanti. She formed relationships with Malcolm X and then Martin Luther King Jr., and continued to advocate for the rights of Black people.
Angelou’s outstanding achievements in the arts and her dedication to advocacy won her the highest of awards, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2011. She died at age 86 in 2014, but her influence continues to live on everywhere from the modern hip-hop community to classrooms all over the world.