An American poet, memoirist, civil rights activist and actress, Maya Angelou continues to be a key figure of the 20th century. Her autobiographical volumes tackle themes of economic, racial and sexual oppression, and continue to inspire young women and POC all over the world.
Although she was born in St Louis, Missouri in 1928, Angelou spent most of her early life in Arkansas with her paternal grandmother. She did not have an easy childhood, and at the age of 7 was raped by her mother's boyfriend whilst visiting them. Her uncles murdered him as revenge, and the trauma of these events left her mute for her several years and is the focus of her 1969 memoir 'I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings', which was the first non-fiction bestseller written by an African American woman.
"Seek patience and passion in equal amounts. Patience alone will not build the temple. Passion alone will destroy its walls."
In 1940, Angelou moved to San Francisco with her mother where she worked various jobs, including as a cocktail waitress, prostitute and cable-car operator. In the late 1950s she moved to New York, where she joined a writers' guild and began to act full time, touring 22 countries in Europe and Africa as part of the folk opera 'Porgy and Bass'.
Angelou spent most of the 1960s living abroad, first in Egypt and later in Ghana where she worked as an editor and freelance writer, as well as working at the University of Ghana for a while. Whilst in Ghana, she joined a group of 'Revolutionist Returnees' and became close friends with civil rights activist Malcolm X. On her return to the US in 1964, she helped him set up the Organization of Afro-American Unity. In 1966 she returned to live in California, where she began to act in various movies and TV shows and became one of the first African-American women to have a screenplay produced as a feature film.
In 1981, she became a Professor of American Studies at Wake Forest University in North Carolina. Over the next few years she began to receive a number of special honours, such as the invitation to write and deliver a poem at the 1993 inauguration of President Bill Clinton, writing a poem for the 50th anniversary of the UN, and eulogising Nelson Mandela in a poem commissioned by the US State Department. Furthermore, in 2011 she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Angelou died in 2014 at her home in North Carolina after several years of health issues. In response to her death, President Obama called her 'a brilliant writer, a fierce friend, and a truly phenomenal woman'. In May 2021 it was announced that Angelou will among the first women to be featured on a new series of quarters from the US Mint.
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