Maya Angelou was an American author, actress, screenwriter, dancer, poet, and civil rights activist who wrote several autobiographies, plays, essays, and poems over a period of five decades.
- Birth Date: April 4, 1928
- Death Date: May 28, 2014
While best known for memoir “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,” Angelou donned several hats during her lifetime. An acclaimed poet, she was a storyteller, activist, and autobiographer. She worked as a singer, dancer, actress, composer, and as a director, found fame as a writer and poet.
During the civil rights movement, Angelou worked for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Angelou also worked as an educator and served as a professor at Wake Forest University. She served on two presidential committees, for Gerald Ford in 1975 and for Jimmy Carter in 1977. In 2000, Angelou was awarded the National Medal of Arts by President Bill Clinton. In 2010, she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor in the U.S., by President Barack Obama.
Born in Missouri, Angelou had a difficult childhood as her parents got separated when she was very young. She was also sexually assaulted by a family associate when she was around the age of 7. So traumatized was Angelou by the experience, that she spent almost 5 years as a virtual mute, and hardly uttered a word during those years.
As an African American, Angelou experienced first-hand racial prejudices and discrimination in Arkansas, where she grew up.
Later, Angelou moved to San Francisco in California where she studied dance and acting at the California Labor School. During that time, she also became the first Black female cable car conductor — a job she held only briefly.
Angelou won a Grammy Award (best-spoken word album) for the audio version of the poem ‘On the Pulse of Morning’ (1993), which she wrote especially for and recited at President Bill Clinton’s inaugural ceremony in January 1993.
However, Angelou is best known for her extremely successful 1969 memoir “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” which is about her life experiences, especially during her childhood and young adult years. The poignant story made literary history as the first nonfiction bestseller by an African American woman.
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