Maya Angelou is an astonishing black adult female who did n’t allow anything halt her from making the things she loved. She is a poet, writer, dramatist, pedagogue, historian, actress, civil rights militant, manufacturer, manager, terpsichorean, and female parent, and so much more, she is an inspiration to African Americans everyplace.

Maya Angelou was born Marguerite Annie Johnson on April 4, 1928 in St.Loius, Missouri. At the immature age of three, Angelou and her babe brother Baily were sent to populate with their grandmother in Stamps, Arkansas after Angelou ‘s parents divorced. The small miss experienced racial favoritism life in Stamps but “ absorbed the deep spiritual religion and old fashioned courtesy of traditional African American life ” . ( Biography 1 ) Angelou has ever had a really close relationship with her small brother Baily. Since Baily had a bad stammer job, alternatively of naming her Marguerite, he called her “ My ” for “ My sister ” . Old ages subsequently, after reading a book on Maya Indians Baily started naming her “ Maya ” and the name stuck. When Maya was seven old ages old, a trip to her female parent ‘s house turned opprobrious when a fellow of her female parent sexually molested her. She felt so ashamed she did n’t state an grownup but alternatively told her brother about the maltreatment. After subsequently hearing that her uncle killed her aggressor she felt her words have killed the adult male and so she fell soundless and ne’er spoke once more for five old ages. Maya started talking once more when she was 13. At that clip her and her brother went to populate with her female parent in San Francisco where she went to Mission High School. She won a scholarship to analyze dance and play at the San Francisco ‘s Labor School at that place, she was exposed to the progressive thoughts “ that animated her ulterior political activism ” At merely 14 she dropped out of high school to go San Francisco ‘s first African American female overseas telegram auto music director. She went back to school and her senior twelvemonth became pregnant and gave birth to her boy Guy a few hebdomads after graduation. At 16 she was a individual female parent, had left place, and was working as a waitress and a cook to back up her and her boy. ( Biography 1 and 2 ) ( Global 1 )

Angelou married a Grecian Sailor named Anastasio Angelopulos in 1952. She started her calling as a dark nine vocalist and changed her name to Maya Angelou. Though the matrimony to the Greek Sailor did n’t last, her calling did, she toured in Europe with a production of the Opera Porgy and Bess in 1954-1955. She besides studied dance with Martha Graham, danced with Alvin Ailey on telecasting shows and recorded her first album “ Calypso Lady ” in 1957. Composing many vocal wordss and poems over the old ages, Angelou was progressively interested in going a author. She so moved to the Harlem Writers Guild where she acted in off-Broadwaies such as the production of Jean Genet ‘s The Blacks and she wrote and performed in Cabaret for Freedom. Populating in New York City she met and fell in love with a South African civil rights militant named Vusumzi Make. The twosome, along with Maya ‘s boy Guy, moved to Cairo, Egypt where Angelou served as editor of the English linguistic communication weekly The Arab Observer. Old ages subsequently Angelou and her boy moved to Ghana where she became an teacher and adjunct decision maker at the University of Ghana ‘s School of Music and play. She besides was editor of African Review and wrote for the Ghanaian Times. During her old ages abroad she read and studied difficult, get the hanging Gallic, Spanish, Italian, Arabic, and Fanti a West African linguistic communication. Biography ( Biography 2 )

Maya Angelou came back to the America in 1964 and remained active in the civil rights motion working with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Mr. King requested Angelou to function as a Northern coordinator for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Her birthday in 1968 was besides the twenty-four hours twelvemonth Dr. King was assassinated. Deeply sadden she c concentrated on her work with the counsel of her friend James Baldwin and started to work on her book that would do her a family name, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. The book told the narrative of her life from childhood to the birth of her boy Guy. After her book was published in 1970 she was a wanted adult female being in demand for learning and talking. In 1972 she wrote a screenplay and composed the mark for the movie Georgia, Georgia, the screenplay made her the first African American adult female of all time to be filmed and was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. Angelou was invited by the presidents of the United States for assorted grounds. “ President Ford appointed her to the American Revolution Bicentennial Commission and President Carter invited her to function on the President Commission for the International Year of the Woman. President Clinton requested that she compose a verse form to read at his startup in 1993. Angelou ‘s reading of her verse form ‘On the Pulse of the Morning ‘ was broadcast unrecorded around the universe. ” ( Biography 3 ) Maya Angelou was honored with the presidential Medal of the Humanistic disciplines and in 2008 she received the Ford ‘s Theatre Lincoln Medal and she narrated the movie the Black taper which became an award-winning documtary and she published a book of counsel for immature adult females Letters to My Daughter. ( Biography 2 and 3 )

Maya Angelou is a great illustration of a individual who followed her dreams no mattered what and ne’er gave up. She written award winning books and screenplays, she written essays and verse forms and appeared in Broadwaies, films, and telecasting. Maya Angelou is an unbelievable black adult female and at 82 is non demoing marks of discontinuing now.

Plants Cited Page

“ Biography: Maya Angelou Poet and Historian. ”

1990. 21 September 2010.

hypertext transfer protocol: //www.achievement.org/autodoc/printmember/ang0bio-1

“ Biography ”

31 August 2010 hypertext transfer protocol: //mayaangelou.com/bio/