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Maya Angelou, Poet
(b. April 4, 1928, St. Louis, Mo.), American writer and actress who was the
featured poet at President Bill Clinton's 1993 inauguration
Hear Maya's Signifying
The wit, wisdom, and power of Maya Angelou's work have made her one of the most beloved contemporary American writers. Maya Angelou was born Marguerite Johnson; her current name is her childhood nickname (Maya) with a version of her first husband's last name (Angelos). Her family moved to California soon after her birth, but her parents divorced when she was three, and she was sent to Stamps, Arkansas, to be raised by her paternal grandmother. When Angelou was seven, she was raped by her mother's boyfriend. The trauma of this experience rendered Angelou mute for five years, and it was during this period that she began to read widely.
Angelou returned to California during high school, and took drama and dance lessons. As a teenager, she became San Francisco's first female streetcar conductor. She gave birth at 16 to her only child, Guy Johnson. To support herself and her son she took a variety of jobs, including working as a cook, a waitress, and a madam to two prostitutes. At 22, Angelou married her first husband. After their divorce a few years later, Angelou became a professional dancer and made a 1954 tour of Europe and Africa in Porgy and Bess. Angelou was active in the Civil Rights Movement, and from 1960 to 1961, she served as the northern coordinator for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). In 1961, Angelou moved to Africa with Vusumzi Make, a South African freedom fighter. She spent the next five years in Egypt and Ghana, working as a journalist and a university professor. After her return to the U.S., Angelou became a part of the Harlem Writers Guild. James Baldwin's editor at Random House was impressed by her poetry and her life story, and asked her to consider writing an autobiography. The result was I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, which was published in 1970 and became a best-seller.
In 1971, Angelou's first published book of poetry, Just Give Me a Cool Drink of Water 'fore I Diiie, was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. Since then she has published five other volumes of poetry. The other volumes of her prose autobiography are Gather Together in My Name (1974), Singin' and Swingin' and Gettin' Merry Like Christmas (1976), The Heart of a Woman (1981), and All God's Children Need Traveling Shoes (1986). In 1993, she published Wouldn't Take Nothing For My Journey Now, a collection of essays, and On the Pulse of Morning, the poem she read at President Bill Clinton's 1993 inauguration.
Angelou has had a distinguished career in film and television as well. In 1971, Angelou's Georgia, Georgia was the first movie screenplay by a black woman to be produced. She was nominated for a Tony Award in 1973 for her performance in Look Away, and for an Emmy Award in 1977 for her performance in Roots. She has received numerous honorary degrees, and was named Reynolds Professor of American Studies at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
Throughout her diverse career, Angelou has often broken new ground. In her words, "humility says that there were people before me who found the path. I'm a road builder. For those who have yet to come, I seem to be finding the path and they will be road builders. That keeps one humble. Love keeps one humble." Yet despite her humility, Maya Angelou's determined road building, and her willingness to share herself in her work, have earned her widespread admiration, respect, and love.
Maya Angelou, award-winning author in 1997. In the 1960s, Angelou began writing and won a National Book Award for I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, her first autobiographical work. In 1971, with Georgia, Georgia, she became the first African American woman to have a screenplay produced as a film. Her writings have brought her numerous awards, and she has been nominated for a Tony, an Emmy, and a Pulitzer prize.
Poem by Maya Angelou read at theMillion Man March by the poet:
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