Maya Angelou is part of the fabric of modern America. She has told her story of being a key part of the civil rights movement through poetry, novels and film. She is best known for her six autobiographies, most notably ‘I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings’. In 1993, President Bill Clinton asked her to recite one of her poems at his inauguration.

Angelou was born in Missouri in 1928 into a deeply segregated society. Her parent’s divorce meant she was sent back and forth between her mother and grandmother. Her mother’s boyfriend raped her when she was eight. His later murder left Angelou mute for five years. She studied drama and literature at school, and three weeks after graduating, gave birth to her son.

Angelou struggled to survive for many years. She experienced poverty, crime, prostitution and her son being kidnapped. She won a scholarship to study dance. Her career as a singer and dancer took off. She moved to New York and acted in Broadway plays. She also met Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X and became active in the civil rights movement.

Angelou became, and is to this day, a prolific writer. She also toured the USA giving lectures, appeared in TV series and wrote songs. Her screenplay, ‘Georgia, Georgia’ was the first written by a black woman to be made into a movie. Angelou has been highly honored for her significant cultural contributions and has over 30 honorary degrees. She is an American legend.

http://famouspeoplelessons.com/m/maya_angelou.html

MAYA ANGELOU
One of the most renowned and influential voices of our time

Born on April 4th, 1928, in St. Louis, Missouri, Dr. Angelou was raised in St. Louis and Stamps, Arkansas. In Stamps, Dr. 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, Dr. Angelou’s love for the arts won her a scholarship to study dance and drama at San Francisco’s Labor School. At 14, 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, Guy, 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.

In 1954 and 1955, Dr. Angelou toured Europe with a production of the opera Porgy and Bess. She studied modern dance with Martha Graham, danced with Alvin Ailey 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 weeklyThe 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.

During her years abroad, Dr. Angelou read and studied voraciously, mastering French, Spanish, Italian, Arabic and the West African language Fanti. While in Ghana, she met with Malcolm X and, in 1964, returned to America to help him build his new Organization of African American Unity.

Shortly after her arrival in the United States, Malcolm X was assassinated, and the organization dissolved. Soon after X's assassination, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. asked Dr. Angelou to serve as Northern Coordinator for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. King's assassination, falling on her birthday in 1968, left her devastated.

With the guidance of her friend, the novelist James Baldwin, she began work on the book that would become I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. Published in 1970, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings was published to international acclaim and enormous popular success. The list of her published verse, non-fiction, and fiction now includes more than 30 bestselling titles.

A trailblazer in film and television, Dr. Angelou wrote the screenplay and composed the score for the 1972 film Georgia, Georgia. Her script, the first by an African American woman ever to be filmed, was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize.

She continues to appear on television and in films including the landmark television adaptation of Alex Haley's Roots (1977) and John Singleton's Poetic Justice(1993). In 1996, she directed her first feature film,Down in the Delta. In 2008, she composed poetry for and narrated the award-winning documentary The Black Candle, directed by M.K. Asante.

Dr. Angelou has served on two presidential committees, was awarded the Presidential Medal of Arts in 2000, the Lincoln Medal in 2008, and has received 3 Grammy Awards. President Clinton requested that she compose a poem to read at his inauguration in 1993. Dr. Angelou's reading of her poem "On the Pulse of the Morning" was broadcast live around the world.

Dr. Angelou has received over 50 honorary degrees and is Reynolds Professor of American Studies at Wake Forest University.

Dr. Angelou’s words and actions continue to stir our souls, energize our bodies, liberate our minds, and heal our hearts.

GLOBAL RENAISANCE WOMAN

Maya Angelou Dead at 86

Award-winning poet, essayist

and author of 'I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings'

passes away in North Carolina home

By Kory Grow

May 28, 2014

She was best known for her 1969 book, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, a literary autobiography chronicling her childhood in the South and overcoming the inherent racism that came with it in cutting detail. It was one of the first autobiographies by an African-American woman in the 20th century to reach a widespread audience, according to The New York Times. Following the release of the book, she went on to write five more memoirs.

Author and civil rights activist Maya Angelou has died at the age of 86. The cause of death has not yet been revealed.

Angelou had recently canceled an appearance at the 2014 Major League Baseball Beacon Awards Luncheon where she was to be honored earlier this week, Huffinton Post reported, citing "health reasons." And in April, an "unexpected ailment" kept her from another event. According to CNN, she died in her Winston-Salem, North Carolina home.

Angelou was born in St. Louis, Missouri in 1928 and, despite dropping out of high school at age 14, went on to excel in several fields. After moving to San Francisco, she eventually got her high school diploma and became the city's first African-American female cable-car operator. She gave birth to a son at 17, but still went on to tour Europe with the cast of Porgy and Bess and issue her debut album, Calypso Lady, in the Fifties. Later, she would direct Tony-nominated Broadway plays and acclaimed films.

"I created myself," she said, according to CNN. "I have taught myself so much."

She did so after overcoming great odds. At age 7, her mother's boyfriend sexually assaulted her. After she testified against him, a mob beat him to death. She said she refused to speak for nearly six years after that.

As an adult, she befriended Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., with whom she worked during the civil ights movement, and later became close to Oprah Winfrey. In January 1993, she read the poem "On the Pulse of Morning" at the swearing-in for President Bill Clinton.

In her lifetime, Angelou would receive a number of awards and recognitions. In 1972, she was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize for her poetry book, Just Give Me a Cool Drink of Water 'Fore I Diiie. She received the Langston Hughes Medal for honoring her African-American cultural heritage in writing in 1991. She won three Grammy Awards in the Nineties and 2000s for recordings of her poetry and her autobiography A Song Flung Up to Heaven. She was given the NAACP Image Award in 1997 in recognition of her many accomplishments. She also earned honorary degrees from several colleges and universities.

In music, Angelou has inspired artists ranging from Fiona Apple to Kayne West to Steven Tyler. She tendered words to Ben Harper, and she read a poem called "We Had Him" at Michel Jackson's memorial.

Angelou's publicist, Helen Brann, told AC News that she had been finishing a new book at the time of her death, though she had been very frail and experiencing heart problems. Brann said she spoke to Angelou the day before her death and that "her spirit was indomitable."

ROLLING STONES

President Barack Obama kisses author and poet Maya Angelou
after awarding her the 2010 Medal of Freedom during a ceremony
in the East Room of the White House in Washington

List of awards and nominations received by Maya Angelou

African American writer and poet Maya Angelou has been honored by universities, literary organizations, government agencies, and special interest groups. Her honors include a National Book Award nomination for her first autobiography I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, a Pulitzer Prize nomination for her book of poetry Just Give Me a Cool Drink of Water 'fore I Diiie, a Tony Award nomination for her role in the 1973 play Look Away, and three Grammys for her spoken word albums. In 1995, Angelou was recognized by her publishing company, Bantam Books, for having the longest-running record (two years) on The New York Times Paperback Nonfiction Bestseller List. She has served on two presidential committees, and was awarded the Lincoln Medal in 2008, the National Medal of Artsin 2000, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2011. Over 30 health care and medical facilities have been named after Angelou. She has been awarded over thirty honorary degrees.

Maya Angelou

Awards

Chubb Fellowship, Yale University, 1970.
Coretta Scott King Honor, 1971.
Pulitzer Prize Nomination, Just Give Me a Cool Drink of Water 'fore I Diiie, 1972.
Tony Award Nomination, Look Away, 1973.
Member, American Revolution Bicentennial Council (appointed by President Gerald Ford), 1975-1976.
Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center Resident, 1975.
Ladies' Home Journal Award ("Woman of the Year in Communication"), 1976.
Member, Presidential Commission for International Women's Year, appointed by Jimmy Carter, 1977.
Reynold's Professor of American Studies, Wake Forest University (lifetime appointment), 1981.
Ladies' Home Journal, "Top 100 Most Influential Women," 1983.
Matrix Award, Field of Books from Women in Communication, Inc., 1983.
Member, North Carolina Arts Council, 1984.
Fulbright Program 40th Anniversary Distinguished Lecturer, 1986.
The North Carolina Award in Literature, 1987.
Golden Plate Award, Academy of Achievement, 1990.
Candace Award, National Coalition of 100 Black Women, 1990.
Langston Hughes Medal, 1991.
Horatio Alger Award, 1992.
Distinguished Woman of North Carolina, 1992.
Crystal Award, Women in Film, 1992
Inaugural Poet, 1993.
Arkansas Black Hall of Fame, 1993.
Grammy, "Best Spoken Word Album," "On The Pulse of Morning," 1993.[20]
Citizen Diplomat Award, National Council for International Visitors (NCIV), 1993.[21]
Rollins College Walk of Fame, 1994.[22][23]
Spingarn Medal (NAACP), 1994.[24]
Frank G. Wells American Teachers Award, 1995.[25]
Grammy, "Best Spoken Word or Non-Musical Album," Phenomenal Woman, 1995.
American Ambassador, UNICEF, 1996.
NAACP Image Award, Literary Work, Nonfiction, 1997.
Presidential and Lecture Series Award, University of North Florida, 1997.
Homecoming Award, Oklahoma Center for Poets and Writers, 1997.
Alston/Jones International Civil and Human Rights Award, 1998.
Inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame, 1998.
Christopher Award, 1999.
Shelia Award, Tubman African American Museum, 1999.
Special Olympics World Games, Speaker, Raleigh, NC, 1999.
Lifetime Achievement Award for Literature, 1999.
Named one of "the top 100 best writers of the 20th Century," Writer's Digest, 1999.
National Medal of Arts, 2000.
Ethnic Multicultural Media Awards (EMMAs), Lifetime Achievement, 2002.
Grammy for Best Spoken Word Album, "A Song Flung Up to Heaven," 2002.
American Geriatrics Society's Foundation for Health In Aging Award, 2002
National Conference for Community and Justice, Charles Evans Hughes Award, 2004.
Howard University Heart's Day Honoree, 2005.
John Hope Franklin Award, June 2006.
Black Caucus of American Library Association, Joint Conference of Librarians of Color Author Award, 2006.
New York Times Best Seller List, May 2006.
John Hope Franklin Award, 2006.
Mother Teresa Award, 2006.
Martha Parker Legacy Award, 2007.
Inducted in the International Civil Rights Walk of Fame at the Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historic Site, 2008[44]
Voice of Peace award (first recipient), Hope for Peace and Justice, 2008.
Cornell Medallion, 2008
Gracie Allen Award (Gracie), 2008.
Lincoln Medal, 2008.
Marian Anderson Award, 2008.
Black Caucus of American Library Association, Literary Award, 2009.
Presidential Medal of Freedom, 2010.
Black Cultural Society Award, Elon University, 2012.

Honorary degrees
Portland State University, 1973.
Smith College, 1975.
Mills College, 1975.
Lawrence University, 1976.
Wake Forest University, 1977.
Columbia College Chicago, 1979.
Occidental College, 1979.
Atlanta University, 1980.
University of Arkansas at Pinebluff, 1980.
Wheaton College, 1981.
Northeastern University, 1982.
Kean College of New Jersey, 1982.
Claremont Graduate University, 1982.
Spelman College, 1983.
Boston College, 1983.
Winston-Salem State University, 1984
University Brunesis, 1984.
Rollins College, 1985.
Howard University, 1985.
Tufts University, 1985.
University of Vermont, 1985.
North Carolina School of the Arts, 1986.
Mount Holyoke College, 1987.
University of Southern California, 1989.
Skidmore College, 1993.
Northeastern University, 1992.
University of North Carolina, 1993.
Academy of Southern Arts and Letters, 1993.
American Film Institute, 1994.
Bowie State University, 1994.
University of Durham, 1995.
Shaw University, 1997.
Lafayette College, 1999.
Hope College, 2001.
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2003.
Columbia University, 2003.
Eastern Connecticut University, 2003
Chapman University, 2007
Shenandoah University, 2008

Source: Wikipedia

Global Renaissance Woman

Dr. Maya Angelou is one of the most renowned and influential voices of our time. Hailed as a global renaissance woman, Dr. Angelou is a celebrated poet, memoirist, novelist, educator, dramatist, producer, actress, historian, filmmaker, and civil rights activist.

Born on April 4th, 1928, in St. Louis, Missouri, Dr. Angelou was raised in St. Louis and Stamps, Arkansas. In Stamps, Dr. 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, Dr. Angelou’s love for the arts won her a scholarship to study dance and drama at San Francisco’s Labor School. At 14, 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, Guy, 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.

In 1954 and 1955, Dr. Angelou toured Europe with a production of the opera Porgy and Bess. She studied modern dance with Martha Graham, danced with Alvin Ailey 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 weeklyThe 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.

During her years abroad, Dr. Angelou read and studied voraciously, mastering French, Spanish, Italian, Arabic and the West African language Fanti. While in Ghana, she met with Malcolm X and, in 1964, returned to America to help him build his new Organization of African American Unity.

Shortly after her arrival in the United States, Malcolm X was assassinated, and the organization dissolved. Soon after X's assassination, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Angelou to serve as Northern Coordinator for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. King's assassination, falling on her birthday in 1968, left her devastated.

With the guidance of her friend, the novelist James Baldwin, she began work on the book that would become I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. Published in 1970, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings was published to international acclaim and enormous popular success. The list of her published verse, non-fiction, and fiction now includes more than 30 bestselling titles.

A trailblazer in film and television, Dr. Angelou wrote the screenplay and composed the score for the 1972 film Georgia, Georgia. Her script, the first by an African American woman ever to be filmed, was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize.

She continues to appear on television and in films including the landmark television adaptation of Alex Haley's Roots (1977) and John Singleton's Poetic Justice(1993). In 1996, she directed her first feature film,Down in the Delta. In 2008, she composed poetry for and narrated the award-winning documentary The Black Candle, directed by M. K. Asante.

Dr. Angelou has served on two presidential committees, was awarded the Presidential Medal of Arts in 2000, the Lincoln Medal in 2008, and has received 3 Grammy Awards. President Clinton requested that she compose a poem to read at his inauguration in 1993. Dr. Angelou's reading of her poem "On Pulse of the Morning" was broadcast live around the world.

Dr. Angelou has received over 30 honorary degrees and is Reynolds Professor of American Studies at Wake Forest University.

Dr. Angelou’s words and actions continue to stir our souls, energize our bodies, liberate our minds, and heal our hearts.

http://mayaangelou.com/bio/

A Brave and Startling Truth

by Maya Angelou

We, this people, on a small and lonely planet
Traveling through casual space
Past aloof stars, across the way of indifferent suns
To a destination where all signs tell us
It is possible and imperative that we learn
A brave and startling truth

And when we come to it
To the day of peacemaking
When we release our fingers
From fists of hostility
And allow the pure air to cool our palms

When we come to it
When the curtain falls on the minstrel show of hate
And faces sooted with scorn are scrubbed clean
When battlefields and coliseum
No longer rake our unique and particular sons and daughters
Up with the bruised and bloody grass
To lie in identical plots in foreign soil

When the rapacious storming of the churches
The screaming racket in the temples have ceased
When the pennants are waving gaily
When the banners of the world tremble
Stoutly in the good, clean breeze

When we come to it
When we let the rifles fall from our shoulders
And children dress their dolls in flags of truce
When land mines of death have been removed
And the aged can walk into evenings of peace
When religious ritual is not perfumed
By the incense of burning flesh
And childhood dreams are not kicked awake
By nightmares of abuse

When we come to it
Then we will confess that not the Pyramids
With their stones set in mysterious perfection
Nor the Gardens of Babylon
Hanging as eternal beauty
In our collective memory
Not the Grand Canyon
Kindled into delicious color
By Western sunsets

Nor the Danube, flowing its blue soul into Europe
Not the sacred peak of Mount Fuji
Stretching to the Rising Sun
Neither Father Amazon nor Mother Mississippi who, without favor,
Nurture all creatures in the depths and on the shores
These are not the only wonders of the world

When we come to it
We, this people, on this minuscule and kithless globe
Who reach daily for the bomb, the blade and the dagger
Yet who petition in the dark for tokens of peace
We, this people on this mote of matter
In whose mouths abide cankerous words
Which challenge our very existence
Yet out of those same mouths
Come songs of such exquisite sweetness
That the heart falters in its labor
And the body is quieted into awe

We, this people, on this small and drifting planet
Whose hands can strike with such abandon
That in a twinkling, life is sapped from the living
Yet those same hands can touch with such healing, irresistible tenderness
That the haughty neck is happy to bow
And the proud back is glad to bend
Out of such chaos, of such contradiction
We learn that we are neither devils nor divines

When we come to it
We, this people, on this wayward, floating body
Created on this earth, of this earth
Have the power to fashion for this earth
A climate where every man and every woman
Can live freely without sanctimonious piety
Without crippling fear

When we come to it
We must confess that we are the possible
We are the miraculous, the true wonder of this world
That is when, and only when
We come to it.

Great Food, All Day Long

by Maya Angelou | Random House 2010

Great Food, All Day Long is an essential reference for everyone who wants to eat better and smarter—and a delightful peek into the kitchen and the heart of a remarkable woman.

P
Letter To My Daughter

by Maya Angelou | Random House, 2008

Dedicated to the daughter she never had but sees all around her, Letter to My Daughter reveals Maya Angelou's path to living well and living a life with meaning. Told in her own inimitable style, this book transcends genres and categories.
The Collected Autobiographies
of Maya Angelou

by Maya Angelou | Modern Library, 2004

Superbly told, with the poet's gift for language and observation, Angelou's autobiography of her childhood in Arkansas - a world of which most Americans are ignorant.
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

By Maya Angelou | Ballantine Books

In the first volume of an extraordinary autobiographical series, one of the most inspiring authors of our time recalls--with candor, humor, poignancy and grace--how her journey began....
I Shall Not Be Moved

by Maya Angelou | Bantam

The triumph and pain of being black and the struggle to be free. Filled with bittersweet intimacies and ferocious courage, these poems are gems--many-faceted, bright with wisdom, radiant with life.
Gather Together in My Name

by Maya Angelou | Random House Trade

In this second volume of her poignant autobiographical series, Maya Angelou powerfully captures the struggles and triumphs of her passionate life with dignity, wisdom, humor, and humanity.
Singin' and Swingin' and
Gettin' Merry Like Christmas

by Maya Angelou | Random House

Charged with Maya Angelou's remarkable sense of life and love, this is a unique celebration of the human condition–;and an enthralling saga that has touched, inspired, and empowered readers worldwide.
Celebrations: Rituals of Peace and Prayer

by Maya Angelou | Random House

Grace, dignity, and eloquence have long been hallmarks of Maya Angelou’s poetry. Her measured verses have stirred our souls, energized our minds, and healed our hearts. In Celebration, she captures our common voice.
Phenomenal Woman

by Maya Angelou | Random House

Phenomenal Woman is a phenomenal poem that speaks to us of where we are as women at the dawn of a new century. Here is a poem that radiates wisdom and conviction, renewing our belief in the glory and tender mercies of our gender.
My Painted House, My
Friendly Chicken, and Me

by Maya Angelou; Illustrated by Margaret Courtney-Clarke

Full color photographs. "Hello, Stranger-Friend" begins Maya Angelou's story about Thandi, a South African Ndebele girl, her mischievous brother, her beloved chicken, and the astonishing mural art produced by the women of her tribe.

Purchase this book >>>
A Song Flung Up to Heaven

by Maya Angelou | Random House

A Song Flung Up to Heaven opens as Maya Angelou returns from Africa to the United States to work with Malcolm X. But first she has to journey to California to be reunited with her mother and brother.

Purchase this book >>>
Hallelujah: The Welcome Table

by Maya Angelou | Random House

Preparing and enjoying homemade meals provides a sense of purpose and calm, accomplishment and connection.Angelou shares memories pithy and poignant–;and the recipes that helped to make them both indelible and irreplaceable.

Purchase this book >>>
Amazing Peace: A Christmas Poem

by Maya Angelou | Random House

Angelou’s moving poem is a radiant affirmation of the goodness of humanity. First read at the 2005 White House tree-lighting ceremony, it comes alive again as a fully illustrated children’s book, celebrating the promise of peace in the holiday

Purchase this book >>>
All God's Children Need Traveling Shoes

by Maya Angelou | Random House

The fifth volume of her compelling autobiography finds Angelou in Ghana, five years after its independence from Britain. Kwame Nkrumah is Ghana's beloved ruler, and there is a sense of pride in the new country.
Still I Rise

by Maya Angelou | Random House

In this inspiring poem, Angelou celebrates the courage of the human spirit over the harshest of obstacles. An ode to the power that resides in us all to overcome the most difficult circumstances, this poem is truly an inspiration and affirmation of faith.