When discussing the arts and where they stand in the earth, one cannot deny how much of an impact they have made throughout the history of humanity. It tin has helped to bring nigh the change that needs to happen in the world. There are many figures that stand out in this field of work. Ane of them being the late poet and activist Maya Angelou. She has become 1 of the most famous women of this time period. Maya Angelou obtained most over l honorary doctorate degrees. She was also respected as an memoirist, educator, dramatist, producer, actress, historian, and filmmaker, really becoming 1 of the start African American female directors. Her beautiful, elegant pieces of work, and her views on fighting for the rights of equality for all races, and gender has touched the hearts of so many, and she  has become an inspirational icon for the world, and withal is today.

Maya Angelou was born as Marguerite Johnson April fourth, 1928 in St. Louis, Missouri. She would afterwards exist raised in a small in Arkansas called Postage forth with her brother by their grandmother, Annie Henderson, after their parents dissever. Maya was built-in during the time period where the rights of African Americans were not given, and Jim Crow was very much alive. So, throughout her time in Stamp, Maya faced many forms of discrimination, and racial prejudice. However, despite these challenges, Maya still grew upward in a family that nurtured her with the strong values that would later inform her through her life likewise as her career after.

Maya struggles would continue however, throughout her babyhood, where it was during that time she became a victim of rape at the hands of her mother'southward boyfriend. After her uncle murdered him for doing this to her, Maya thought that it was her words that caused his death. Equally a result, she became silent for nigh 5 years.  When she was around thirteen years old, Maya started to speak again. Her beloved for words, and language by then had just grown. She had started to read books from very well known black authors like Langston Hughes, Westward. East. B. Du Bois, and Paul Lawrence Dunbar, as well every bit classical works from Shakespeare, Charles Dickens, and Edgar Allen Poe. Mrs. Flowers, an intellectual African American woman who was besides responsible for helping Maya to offset speaking once again, had been ane of the most influential figures in Maya's life that taught her how vital instruction was, and was one of the reason Maya came to truly beloved poetry.

Maya and her blood brother would go to San Francisco to become and live their female parent. There, she attended high school where she as well received a scholarship to study dance and drama. Maya would later drop out of high school and would become the showtime African American female car conductor for San Francisco. She would later go back and finish, and requite birth to her son Guy. She subsequently married a Greek sailor named Tosh Angelos, in 1950, but they would subsequently carve up. She would proceed her work as a performer by touring Europe with a product of the opera Porgy and Bess in 1954 and 1955. Maya also decided to study mod dance with Martha Graham, she and so started dancing with Alvin Ailey on television variety shows, and recorded her first record album, Calypso Lady in 1957.

Maya Angelou and then started singing in the West Coast and Hawaiian nightclubs during the late 1950s. Subsequently that, Angelou would go to New York to keep her stage career. It was also during this time that Maya joined the Harlem Writer's Guild while under the guidance of her close friend James Baldwin. Hither, Maya had the opportunity to hear Martin Luther King speak which prompted her to join the civil rights motion. From there, She was then offered a position to exist the northern coordinator for Dr. Male monarch's SCLC. Later that, Maya would then motility to Cairo with her son, and, later on, to Republic of ghana in West Africa in 1962. She pursued the career of  a freelance writer and had even become a  feature editor at the African Review. During the mid-60s Maya had returned to the U.S. She was so pushed past her friend James Baldwin, every bit well as Robert Loomis, to write her ain autobiography. Although she had declined multiple times at commencement, it was in 1970 where Maya angelou published her critically acclaimed novel I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings.

I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings, was i of the 6 autobiographies produced by Angelou. Information technology became an immediate success, and was nominated for the a National Volume award. Her later works included Gather Together in My Proper noun (1974), The Heart of a Woman (1981), All God's Children Need Traveling Shoes (1986), and her last volume, A Song Flung upwardly to Heaven (2002). Which took about xv years to brand. She also became a very well known poet as well. In the early 1990s, President Bill Clinton invited her to write and read the first ever countdown poem. Americans all across the country listened to her speak and call for peace, racial and religious harmony, and social justice for people of different origins, incomes, genders, and sexual orientations.

It was in 2013, that Maya Angelou was given the Literarian Award, which is an honorary National Book Honour given to people who make contributions to the literary community. She later died in 2014 at the historic period of 86. But her teachings, and words still reside with us to this day

Maya Angelou Timeline:

Timeline .jpg

Sources:

06." Caged Bird Legacy. Web. xi Apr. 2016.

"Maya Angelou." Bio.com. A&E Networks Television set, 2014. Web. 11 April. 2016.

"Maya Angelou Biography." -- Academy of Achievement. Web. 11 Apr. 2016.

"Maya Angelou Biography." -- University of Achievement. Web. xi April. 2016.

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