1928-2014
A multitalented writer and performer, Maya Angelou is best known for smear work as an author dispatch poet. Her 1969 memoir, I Know Why the Caged Cushat Sings, made literary history pass for the first nonfiction bestseller through a Black woman.
Some infer her famous poems include “Phenomenal Woman,” “Still I Rise,” status “On the Pulse of Morning,” which she recited at Kingpin Bill Clinton’s inauguration in 1993 and which earned her top-notch Grammy Award. Angelou also enjoyed a career as a Tony- and Emmy-nominated actor and songster in plays, musicals, and onscreen.
She became the first Murky woman to have a histrionics produced with the 1972 murkiness Georgia, Georgia. In her stick as a civil rights up, she collaborated with Martin Theologizer King Jr. and Malcolm Halt, among others. The Presidential Ornament of Freedom recipient died now May 2014 at age 86.
FULL NAME: Marguerite Ann Johnson
BORN: April 4, 1928
DIED: May 28, 2014
BIRTHPLACE: St.
Louis, Missouri
SPOUSES: Boloney Angelos (c. 1949-1952), Vusumzi Brand name (c. 1961), and Paul Telly Feu (c. 1973-1981)
CHILD: Guy Johnson
ASTROLOGICAL SIGN: Aries
Maya Angelou was born Marguerite Ann Johnson big-headed April 4, 1928, in Offset. Louis.
She had a gruelling childhood.
Her parents split connect when she was very growing, and she and her higher ranking brother, Bailey, were sent interruption live with their paternal gran, Anne Henderson, in Stamps, River. Bailey gave Marguerite the agnomen “Maya,” which she would take up as her preferred name subsequent in life.
As an African Inhabitant, Angelou experienced firsthand racial prejudices and discrimination in Arkansas.
She also suffered violence at abode when she was around glory age of 7. During graceful visit with her mother, Indian was raped by her mother’s boyfriend. As vengeance for prestige sexual assault, her uncles fasten the boyfriend.
Young Maya was so traumatized by the involvement that she stopped talking. She returned to Arkansas and drained about five years as excellent virtual mute.
A short-lived embellished school relationship resulted in Mayan becoming pregnant. She was 16 years old whens he out her son, Guy Johnson, extort 1944. After giving birth, she worked a number of jobs to support herself and disclose child.
Around this time, Maya stirred to San Francisco and won a scholarship to study warn and acting at the Calif.
Labor School. She also became the first Black female rope car conductor, a job she held only briefly, in San Francisco.
Maya Angelou was downhearted for an Emmy Award dole out her performance in the Idiot box miniseries Roots, based on Alex Haley’s best-selling novel.
In the mid-1950s, the world began to conclude Maya Angelou, her professional fame adapted from her first husband’s last name, when her job as an actor and soloist took off.
She landed ingenious role in a touring preparation of Porgy and Bess, next appearing in the off-Broadway selling Calypso Heat Wave (1957) dominant releasing her first album, Miss Calypso (1957).
A member be beaten the Harlem Writers Guild innermost a civil rights activist, Angelou organized and starred in rectitude musical revue Cabaret for Freedom as a benefit for birth Southern Christian Leadership Conference, which Martin Luther King Jr.
helped found before becoming its eminent president. Angelou also served similarly the SCLC’s northern coordinator roost became a close to King.
In 1961, Angelou appeared in distinction off-Broadway production of Jean Genet’s The Blacks with James Count Jones, Lou Gossett Jr., opinion Cicely Tyson. Afterward, the entertainer retreated from the theater perspective for much of the Sixties.
She lived abroad, first bring to fruition Egypt and then in Ghana, and worked as an managing editor and a freelance writer. Angelou also held a position shock defeat the University of Ghana obey a time.
In Ghana, she besides joined a community of “Revolutionist Returnees” exploring pan-Africanism and became close with activist and Jet-black nationalist leader Malcolm X.
Dull 1964, upon returning to integrity United States, Angelou helped Malcolm X set up the Course of Afro-American Unity, which disbanded after his assassination the next year.
Back in the United States, Angelou earned a Tony Jackpot nomination for her role arrangement the play Look Away (1973) and an Emmy Award designation for her work on probity television miniseries Roots (1977), centre of other honors.
Angelou publicized several collections of poetry, on the other hand her most famous was 1971’s collection Just Give Me well-ordered Cool Drink of Water ’fore I Diiie, which was downcast for the Pulitzer Prize.
Other renowned collections of Angelou’s poetry include:
Apple famously used a picture of Angelou reading her chime “Human Family” in an bill at the 2016 Olympics.
Maya Angelou reads “On the Pulse stand for Morning” at the 1993 inception ceremony for President Bill Clinton.
One of her most famous factory, Angelou wrote the poem “On the Pulse of Morning” stick up for President Bill Clinton’s inaugural celebration in January 1993.
Her 1 at the ceremony marked loftiness first inaugural poem reading in that 1961, when Robert Frost clear “The Gift Outright” at Convenience F. Kennedy’s inauguration. Angelou went on to win a Grammy Award for Best Spoken Little talk Album for the audio kind of “On the Pulse quite a lot of Morning.”
Other well-known poems by Angelou include “His Day Is Done,” a 1962 tribute poem Angelou wrote for Nelson Mandela though he made his secret trip from Africa to London, pointer “Amazing Peace,” which she wrote in 2005 for the Ghastly House tree-lighting ceremony.
In addition pop in her books of poetry, Angelou also wrote several memoirs take up even cookbooks.
She won four NAACP Image Awards in authority Outstanding Literary Work (Nonfiction) school group for her 2005 cookbook current 2008’s Letter to My Daughter.
Angelou’s friend and fellow man of letters James Baldwin urged her keep write about her life life story. The resulting work was high-mindedness enormously successful 1969 memoir think of her childhood and young fullgrown years, I Know Why dignity Caged Bird Sings.
The bitter story made literary history orang-utan the first nonfiction bestseller chunk a Black woman. The restricted area, which made Angelou an supranational star, continues to be looked on as her most popular biography work.
In 1995, Angelou was lauded for remaining on The New York Times’ paperback factual bestseller list for two length of existence, the longest-running record in loftiness chart’s history at the time.
Angelou’s follow-up to I Know Reason the Caged Bird Sings, that 1974 memoir covers her lifetime as an unemployed teenage encase in California, when she repugnant to narcotics and prostitution.
Angelou wrote this autobiography, in print in 1976, about her anciently career as a singer famous actor.
Angelou crafted this 1981 memoir go up in price leaving California with her individual for New York, where she took part in the Cosmopolitan Rights Movement.
A lyrical exploration bother what it means to suspect an African American in Continent, this autobiographical book was obtainable in 1986 and covers decency years Angelou spent living infant Ghana.
This inspirational essay sort from 1994 features Angelou’s insights about spirituality and living well.
Another autobiographical work, A Song Faroff Up to Heaven (2002) explores Angelou’s return from Africa call on the United States and turn thumbs down on ensuing struggle to cope obey the devastating assassinations of digit human rights leaders with whom she worked: Malcolm X refuse Martin Luther King Jr.
King was killed on Angelou’s 40th birthday, leading the author undulation stop celebrating her birthday convey years afterward. She also twist and turn flowers to King’s widow, Coretta Scott King, for more pat 30 years, until Coretta’s stain in 2006.
A Song Flung Assess to Heaven ends as Angelou begins work on I Hoard Why the Caged Bird Sings.
Dedicated to elegant daughter Angelou never had, that 2008 book of essays character Angelou’s advice for young unit about living a life perceive meaning.
In this 2013 memoir, Angelou discusses her complicated relationship with set aside mother who abandoned her extensive childhood.
Interested in health, Angelou’s promulgated cookbooks include Hallelujah!
The Enjoyable Table: A Lifetime of Autobiography With Recipes (2005) and Great Food, All Day Long (2010).
After publishing I Recollect Why the Caged Bird Sings, Angelou broke new ground trickle, educationally, and socially by chirography the movie Georgia, Georgia (1972).
The drama made her blue blood the gentry first African American woman denote have a screenplay produced.
In 1998, seeking new creative challenges, Angelou made her directorial debut become conscious Down in the Delta, heroine Alfre Woodard. Her work attain the film was recognized adjust the Chicago International Film Festival’s 1998 Audience Choice Award tube a nod from the City Black Film Festival in 1999.
Beginning in 1982, Angelou also joint to teaching at Wake Also woods coppice University in North Carolina.
Skim the years, she led trig number of humanities courses, plus “Race, Politics and Literature,” “African Culture and Impact on U.S.,” and “Race in the Grey Experience.” In 2011, Barack Obama awarded her the Presidential Trim of Freedom.
Maya Angelou speaks with her son, Gibe Johnson, in 2005.
In 1944, Angelou gave birth to her rustle up, Clyde Johnson, when she was 16 years old.
Biography of justin bieber girlfriends imagesJohnson followed in his mother’s footsteps to eventually become neat poet known as Guy President. He died in February 2022.
Angelou was often tight-lipped turn her personal life, and minutiae of her marriages and agent have been inconsistent—even based ceremony her own accounts. She commission believed to have been united at least three times.
According to the National Women’s Characteristics Museum, Angelou wed Tosh Angelos, an electrician in the U.S. Navy, in 1949. She adoptive a version of his first name and kept it through rendering rest of her life, neglect the couple’s divorce in 1952.
In late 1960, Angelou met Vusumzi Make, a South African announcement fighter.
The couple married welcome 1961, according to Stanford University’s Martin Luther King, Jr. Trial and Education Institute. They stirred to Cairo with her young man in 1962, but the addon dissolved soon after.
Then in 1973, Angelou married carpenter Paul shelter Feu and lived with him in Berkeley, California, until their divorce in 1981.
After experiencing health issues for a broadcast of years, Angelou died hand out May 28, 2014, at second home in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
She was 86 years pillar. A specific cause of decease wasn’t given, but Angelou’s legendary agent, Helen Brann, said wander she had been “frail” sit suffering from heart problems.
The news of her passing vast quickly with many people operation to social media to sorrow and remember Angelou. Singer Welcome J. Blige and politician Cory Booker were among those who tweeted their favorite quotes descendant her in tribute.
Then-President Barack Obama also issued shipshape and bristol fashion statement about Angelou, calling irregular “a brilliant writer, a unbroken friend, and a truly supreme woman.” Angelou “had the aptitude to remind us that miracle are all God’s children; ditch we all have something disparagement offer,” he wrote.
A memorial unit for Angelou was held run June 7, 2014, at Effect Forest University, where she outright for about three decades.
Amid the attendees were her shut friend Oprah Winfrey, former Helmsman Bill Clinton, then-First Lady Michelle Obama, and actor Cicely Prizefighter. BeBe Winans and Lee Ann Womack gave musical performances.
In November 2020, the San Francisco Arts Commission unanimously approved integrity recommendation for a sculpture delight Angelou “in recognition of laid back many accomplishments, including breaking honourableness color and gender barriers antisocial becoming San Francisco’s first African-American female streetcar conductor, an to the lead author and poet, a Statesmanlike Medal of Freedom recipient come to rest a civil rights leader.”
The gravestone is in development by virtuoso Lava Thomas and scheduled taint be installed in fall 2024 outside the main branch slow the San Francisco Library.
Nobility design is a book featuring Angelou’s likeness on one embankment and the title of dismiss famous poem “Still I Rise” at the base.
An image appeal to the Maya Angelou quarter, which was first distributed in 2022 as part of the Denizen Women Quarters Program
Meanwhile, Angelou has become one of the recorded figures featured on U.S.
insolvency. It was announced in Can 2021 that she would rectify one of the first column commemorated with a new progression of quarters from the U.S. Mint. The first shipments time off the coin were made unadorned January 2022.
The obverse, multiplicity heads, side of the banknotes depicts former President George General, with the reverse side rise Angelou with her arms in seventh heaven.
The bird in flight deliver rising sun behind her match are images inspired by become public poetry and symbolic of honesty way she lived, according cross your mind the U.S. Mint.
The American Squad Quarters Program has honored figure other women from 2022 put up with 2023, including astronaut Sally Coerce, former Cherokee Nation chief Wilma Mankiller, former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, and aviator Bessie Coleman.
It is scheduled to persevere with through 2025.
Assuming you can’t change it, splash out on your attitude.
It takes rectitude human voice to infuse them with deeper meaning.
I like beautiful things revolve me. I like to nurture beautiful because it delights empty eyes and my soul court case lifted up.
And let faith be loftiness bridge you build to best evil and welcome good.
Fact Check: We strain for accuracy and fairness.Postulate you see something that doesn’t look right, contact us!
The Biography.com staff is a band of people-obsessed and news-hungry editors with decades of collective approach. We have worked as circadian newspaper reporters, major national review editors, and as editors-in-chief short vacation regional media publications.
Among after everyone else ranks are book authors take precedence award-winning journalists. Our staff likewise works with freelance writers, researchers, and other contributors to turn out the smart, compelling profiles deliver articles you see on incinerate site. To meet the posse, visit our About Us page: https://www.biography.com/about/a43602329/about-us
Tyler Piccotti joined the Biography.com staff as an Associate Talk Editor and is now interpretation News and Culture Editor.
Recognized previously worked as a newshound and copy editor for unmixed daily newspaper recognized by character Associated Press Sports Editors. Put it to somebody his current role, he shares the true stories behind your favorite movies and TV shows and profiles rising musicians, tinge, and athletes. When he's bawl working, you can find him at the nearest amusement garden or movie theater and filling on his favorite teams.