Maya Angelou is one of the most renowned and influential female voices of our time. Hailed as a global renaissance woman, Dr. Angelou is a celebrated poet, novelist, educator, dramatist, producer, actress, historian, filmmaker and civil rights activist.
She was born in St. Louis, Missouri in 1928 and raised by her grandmother in Arkansas. During her young years, Angelou experienced the brutality of racial discrimination, but she also absorbed the unshakable faith and values of traditional African-American family, community, and culture.
As a teenager, her love for the arts won her a scholarship to study dance and drama at San Francisco's Labor School. At the age of fourteen, she dropped out to become San Francisco/s first African-American female cable car conductor. She later finished high school, giving birth to her son a few weeks after graduation. As a young single mother, she supported her son by working as a waitress and cook, however her passion for music, dance, performance and poetry would soon take center stage.
I believe that every person is born with talent.-- Maya Angelou
In 1954 and 1955, Dr. Angelou toured Europe with a production of the opera Porgy and Bess. She studied modern dance and later danced on television variety shows and, in 1957, recorded her first album, Calypso Lady. In 1958, she moved to New York, where she joined the Harlem Writers Guild, acted in the historic Off-Broadway production of Jean Genet's The Blacks and wrote and performed Cabaret for Freedom.
In 1960, Dr. Angelou moved to Cairo, Egypt where she served as editor of the English language weekly The Arab Observer. The next year, she moved to Ghana where she taught at the University of Ghana's School of Music and Drama, worked as feature editor for The African Review and wrote for The Ghanaian Times.
I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel. -- Maya Angelou
During her years abroad, Dr. Angelou read and studied voraciously, mastering French, Spanish, Italian, Arabic and the West African language Fanti. Soon after her return to the United States, she became the Northern Coordinator for the Southern Christian Leadership conference. After King's assassination, with the encouragement of her friend, James Baldwin, she began work on the book that would become I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.
The list of her published verse, non-fiction and fiction now includes more than thirty bestselling titles. A trailblazer in film and television, Dr. Angelou wrote the screenplay and composed the score for the 1072 film, Greorgia, Georgia. Her script, the first by an African American woman ever to be filmed was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize.
Dr. Angelou has received over thirty honorary degrees and is Reynolds Professor of American Studies at Wake Forest University. She's been a shining example to many women, no matter our race.
How important it is for us to recognize and celebrate our heroes and she-roes! -- Maya Angelou
Back in the nineties, I was a non-traditional college student at Penn State. One day, I was in the library showing a young student how to do research when the student, Erin, spied books by Angelou. "Oh, I love Maya's poetry," she oozed. When I told her I'd never heard any of her verse, Erin pulled a book from the shelf and opened it to the index. "Here, I'll share my favorite poem." Suddenly she was the teacher.
She flipped through the book until she found the page she sought. "My mother read this poem to me almost every night. It's my ultimate favorite: Phenominal Woman." Then she began reading it to me in a lively jazzbeat, with a cadence I'll never forget.
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