Maya Angelou

Maya Angelou

Name originally Marguerite some sources say Marguerita Johnson; surname is

pronounced "An-ge-lo"; born April 4, 1928, in St. Louis, Missouri, United States;

daughter of Bailey a doorkeeper and naval dietician and Vivian a nurse and

realtor; maiden name, Baxter Johnson; married Tosh Angelou divorced c. 1952;

married Paul Du Feu, December, 1973 divorced; children: Guy Johnson.

By the time she was in her early twenties, Maya Angelou had been a Creole

cook, a streetcar conductor, a cocktail waitress, a dancer, a madam, and an

unwed mother. The following decades saw her emerge as a successful singer,

actress, and playwright, an editor for an English-language magazine in Egypt, a

lecturer and civil rights activist, and a popular author of five collections of poetry

and five autobiographies

"On the Pulse of Morning" at Bill Clinton's presidential inauguration, an occasion

that gave her wide recognition.

Angelou is hailed as one of the great voices of contemporary black literature

and as a remarkable Renaissance woman. She began producing books after

some notable friends, including author James Baldwin, heard Angelou's stories of

her childhood spent shuttling between rural, segregated Stamps, Arkansas,

where her devout grandmother ran a general store, and St. Louis, Missouri,

where her worldly, glamorous mother lived. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, a

chronicle of her life up to age sixteen and ending with the birth of her son, Guy

was published in 1970 with great critical