Maya Angelou’s Inspiring Journey: Poet, Activist, Author, and Icon

Maya Angelou: Poet, Activist, Storyteller, Resilient Spirit, Enduring Legacy

Maya Angelou was born with the name Marguerite Annie Johnson, on the 4 th of April, 1928, in St. Louis, Missouri, growing up with a lot of hardship and strength. When she was only three years old she, together with her elder brother by the name, Bailey was taken to her paternal grandmother who lived in the segregated town of Stamps in Arkansas. Here she experienced the suffocating pressure of Jim Crow and racial discrimination that would form much of the basis of her work later in life. The event that served as a turning point and was traumatic happened when the author was seven years old and was sexually assaulted during her short visit with the mother in St. Louis. Angelou thought that she was the cause of death because of the subsequent murder of her attacker, who could have been murdered by her uncles. This sense of guilt made her almost silent during almost five years, but only her adorable brother could interrupt this silence. It is also when she discovered her love of liturature which was fostered by one of her bright family friends through making her familiar with the power of words and poetry.

The teenage years of Angelou were spent in San Francisco where she broke several norms in the society, being the first Black female who worked as a cable car conductor. She has also had her son when she was 16, Guy. This early adulthood was a collage of the varied experiences: she was a dancer, singer (with the pseudonym Maya Angelou), actress and even a cook. The worldview was further enlarged as she performed in the opera Porgy and Bess and performed in Europe as well as Africa.

Civil Rights Movement is what Angelou was vehemently engaged in during the 1960s. She was driven by Martin Luther King Jr. and worked as Northern Coordinator of Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). Her social justice agenda was not strictly local and in Egypt (where she made her home), then in Ghana as a journalist, she became one of the notable members of the expatriate community of African Americans.

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In 1969, at the request of her friend James Baldwin, Angelou released the groundbreaking autobiography I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. Described in detail, with raw and honest writing and poetic language, Angelou’s autobiography represented her early years, and became an international sensation and critical acclaim, even winning a nomination for a National Book Award. This was the first of seven volumes of autobiography (e.g., Gather Together in My Name, The Heart of a Woman), depicting the amazing life she lived.

Angelou was not only a memoirist, but she was also a prolific poet, essayist, and playwright. Her poetry was powerful, marked sometimes by rhythm, heavily charged emotional themes, resilience, identity, and empowerment. Her best known poems include “Still I Rise” and “Phenomenal Woman,” which have been read by millions as empowering poems of strength and self-acceptance. In 1993, Angelou, writing empowered the nation, especially people of color and women, when she became A first African American and the first woman to recite her poem, “On the Pulse of Morning,” at President Bill Clinton’s inauguration.
Throughout her life, Maya Angelou received over forty honorary degrees, as well as and many accolades for her works, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2010. In 1982, she became a Reynolds Professor of American Studies at Wake Forest University, where she had a tenure of almost three-decades, if not longer. Angelou continued to write and lecture until Passes at 86 on May 28, 2014.

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