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Maya Angelou was born Marguerite Ann Johnson in St. Louis, Missouri, on April 4, 1928. In 1931, at the age of three, her parents divorced and she and her 5-year old brother, Bailey, were sent by train to live with their grandmother Arkansas. While she was living with her grandmother, Maya participated in many dance classes including tap, jazz and salsa. She performed at many recitals and won numerous awards for her inspirational dancing. After four years apart from their mother, the children returned home. This move eventually took a turn for the worse when at age eight, Maya was raped by her mother's boyfriend, Mr. Freeman. Her description of the experience resulted in the murder of the rapist. Upon learning that Mr. Freeman was later kicked to death killed by her uncles, Maya became mute, believing, as she says, that "the power of my words led to someone's death." Still mute, four years later, she was sent back to Stamps because no one could handle the grim state she was in. In 1959, at the request of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Maya Angelou became the northern coordinator for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. From 1961 to 1962 she was associate editor of The Arab Observer in Cairo, Egypt, where she lived for a few years, the only English-language news weekly in the Middle East, and from 1964 to 1966 she was feature editor of the African Review in Accra, Ghana. She returned to the U.S. in 1974 and was appointed by Gerald Ford to the Bicentennial Commission and later by Jimmy Carter to the Commission for International Woman of the Year. She accepted a lifetime appointment in 1981 as Reynolds Professor of American Studies at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. In 1993, Angelou wrote and delivered a poem, "On The Pulse of the Morning," at the inauguration for President Bill Clinton at his request. The first black woman director in Hollywood, Angelou has written, produced, directed, and starred in productions for stage, film, and television. In 1971, she wrote the original screenplay and musical score for the film Georgia, Georgia, and was both author and executive producer of a five-part television miniseries "Three Way Choice." She has also written and produced several prize-winning documentaries, including "Afro-Americans in the Arts," a PBS special for which she received the Golden Eagle Award. Maya Angelou was twice nominated for a Tony award for acting: once for her Broadway debut in Look Away (1973), and again for her performance in Roots (1977). |
