Maya Angelou

Maya Angelou was born Marguerite Annie Johnson on April 4, 1928, in St. Louis, Missouri, to Bailey Johnson, a naval dietitian, and Vivian Baxter Johnson, a nurse. Her parents separated early, sending her and her brother Bailey to live with their grandmother in Stamps, Arkansas, where she endured severe racial prejudice under Jim Crow laws. At around age seven, she was raped by her mother's boyfriend, who was later killed, possibly by uncles; this trauma rendered her mute for several years until a neighbor's encouragement through literature helped her regain speech. At 16, she gave birth to her son, Guy Johnson. In her late teens and 20s, Angelou moved to San Francisco with her mother, working diverse jobs including cocktail waitress, cook, dancer, prostitute, and madam. She adopted her stage name 'Maya Angelou' from her brother's nickname and a variation of her first husband Tosh Angelos's surname; she later legally changed it. Her performing career took off in the mid-1950s with roles in productions like a touring 'Porgy and Bess', off-Broadway 'Calypso Heat Wave', and her album 'Miss Calypso'. She also studied languages while living in Africa, particularly Ghana, where she worked as a journalist and editor; this period inspired her book 'All God’s Children Need Traveling Shoes'. Returning to the U.S., Angelou immersed herself in civil rights, collaborating with Malcolm X in the Organization of Afro-American Unity until his 1965 assassination and working with Martin Luther King Jr. until his 1968 death on her birthday. Her literary breakthrough came with the memoir 'I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings', the first of seven autobiographies exploring oppression, which brought international acclaim. She continued writing poetry, essays, and directing films like 'Down in the Delta', while teaching at Wake Forest University. She married twice more: Vusumzi Make and Paul du Feu. Angelou died on May 28, 2014, at home in Winston-Salem after health decline.