The Wonderful Life Of The Great Maya Angelou

When discussing the arts and where they stand in the world, one cannot deny how much of an impact they have made throughout the history of humanity. It can has helped to bring about the change that needs to happen in the world. There are many figures that stand out in this field of work. One of them being the late poet and activist Maya Angelou. She has become one of the most famous women of this time period. Maya Angelou obtained about over 50 honorary doctorate degrees. She was also respected as an memoirist, educator, dramatist, producer, actress, historian, and filmmaker, actually becoming one of the first African American female directors. Her beautiful, elegant pieces of work, and her views on fighting for the rights of equality for all races, and gender has touched the hearts of so many, and she  has become an inspirational icon for the world, and still is today.

Maya Angelou was born as Marguerite Johnson April 4th, 1928 in St. Louis, Missouri. She would later be raised in a small in Arkansas called Stamp along with her brother by their grandmother, Annie Henderson, after their parents split. Maya was born during the time period where the rights of African Americans were not given, and Jim Crow was very much alive. So, throughout her time in Stamp, Maya faced many forms of discrimination, and racial prejudice. However, despite these challenges, Maya still grew up in a family that nurtured her with the strong values that would later inform her through her life as well as her career later on.

Maya struggles would continue however, throughout her childhood, where it was during that time she became a victim of rape at the hands of her mother’s boyfriend. After her uncle murdered him for doing this to her, Maya thought that it was her words that caused his death. As a result, she became silent for about 5 years.  When she was around 13 years old, Maya started to speak again. Her love for words, and language by then had only grown. She had started to read books from very well known black authors like Langston Hughes, W. E. B. Du Bois, and Paul Lawrence Dunbar, as well as classical works from Shakespeare, Charles Dickens, and Edgar Allen Poe. Mrs. Flowers, an intellectual African American woman who was also responsible for helping Maya to start speaking again, had been one of the most influential figures in Maya’s life that taught her how vital education was, and was one of the reason Maya came to truly love poetry.

Maya and her brother would go to San Francisco to go and live their mother. There, she attended high school where she also received a scholarship to study dance and drama. Maya would later drop out of high school and would become the first African American female car conductor for San Francisco. She would later go back and finish, and give birth to her son Guy. She later on married a Greek sailor named Tosh Angelos, in 1950, but they would later separate. She would continue her work as a performer by touring Europe with a production of the opera Porgy and Bess in 1954 and 1955. Maya also decided to study modern dance with Martha Graham, she then started dancing with Alvin Ailey on television variety shows, and recorded her first record album, Calypso Lady in 1957.

Maya Angelou then started singing in the West Coast and Hawaiian nightclubs during the late 1950s. After that, Angelou would go to New York to continue her stage career. It was also during this time that Maya joined the Harlem Writer’s Guild while under the guidance of her close friend James Baldwin. Here, Maya had the opportunity to hear Martin Luther King speak which prompted her to join the civil rights movement. From there, She was then offered a position to be the northern coordinator for Dr. King's SCLC. After that, Maya would then move to Cairo with her son, and, later on, to Ghana in West Africa in 1962. She pursued the career of  a freelance writer and had even become a  feature editor at the African Review. During the mid-60s Maya had returned to the U.S. She was then pushed by her friend James Baldwin, as well as Robert Loomis, to write her own autobiography. Although she had declined multiple times at first, it was in 1970 where Maya angelou published her critically acclaimed novel I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings.

I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings, was one of the six autobiographies produced by Angelou. It became an immediate success, and was nominated for the a National Book award. Her later works included  Gather Together in My Name (1974),  The Heart of a Woman (1981),  All God's Children Need Traveling Shoes (1986), and her final volume, A Song Flung up to Heaven (2002). Which took about 15 years to make. She also became a very well known poet as well. In the early 1990s, President Bill Clinton invited her to write and read the first ever inaugural poem. Americans all across the country listened to her speak and call for peace, racial and religious harmony, and social justice for people of different origins, incomes, genders, and sexual orientations.

It was in 2013, that Maya Angelou was given the Literarian Award, which is an honorary National Book Award given to people who make contributions to the literary community. She later died in 2014 at the age of 86. But her teachings, and words still reside with us to this day

Maya Angelou Timeline:

Sources:

06." Caged Bird Legacy. Web. 11 Apr. 2016.

"Maya Angelou." Bio.com. A&E Networks Television, 2014. Web. 11 Apr. 2016.

"Maya Angelou Biography." -- Academy of Achievement. Web. 11 Apr. 2016.