![]() "I am human," Angelou said, quoting from her own work, "and nothing human can be alien to me." But always, she came back to love - and humanity. She spoke of her early love for William Shakespeare's works, and offered her audience excerpts from the poems of several African-Americans, including James Weldon Johnson and Paul Lawrence Dunbar. "The honorary duty of a human being is to love," Angelou said. She ranged from story to poem to song and back again, and her theme was love and the universality of all lives. Maya Angelou, poet, was among the first African-American women to hit the bestsellers lists with her "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings," held the Great Hall audience spellbound with stories of her own childhood. She was appointed by President Gerald Ford to the Bicentennial Commission and by President Jimmy Carter to the National Commission on the Observance of International Women's Year. Angelou became the northern coordinator for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. In Ghana, she was feature editor of The African Review and taught at the University of Ghana. She married a South African freedom fighter and lived in Cairo where she was editor of The Arab Observer, the only English-language news weekly in the Middle East. Maya Angelou, who spoke French, Spanish, Italian and West African Fanti, began her career in drama and dance. At the request of President Clinton, she wrote and delivered a poem at his 1993 presidential inauguration. She published ten best selling books and numerous magazine articles earning her Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award nominations. She lectured throughout the US and abroad and was Reynolds professor of American Studies at Wake Forest University in North Carolina since 1981. She was a poet, historian, author, actress, playwright, civil-rights activist, producer and director. Louis, was raised in segregated rural Arkansas. She was the 2013 recipient of the Literarian Award, an honorary National Book Award for contributions to the literary community.Maya Angelou, born Apas Marguerite Johnson in St. In 2010 President Barack Obama awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor in the U.S. In 1978, she was a National Book Award Judge for Biography and Autobiography.Īngelou has received more than 30 honorary degrees and has been inducted into the Wake Forest University Hall of Fame for Writers. Malcolm X also asked her to work with him upon his return from Mecca. Martin Luther King, Jr., she served as the Northern Coordinator of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference during the height of the civil rights demonstrations. She appeared in Broadway and Off-Broadway plays, including Cabaret for Freedom, which she wrote with Godfrey Cambridge. The list of her published verse, non-fiction, and fiction now includes more than 30 bestselling titles.Īngelou’s remarkable career encompasses dance, theater, journalism and social activism. In 2013, at age 85, Angelou published her seventh autobiography, Mom & Me & Mom. It was the first time that an African American woman presented a poem at a presidential inauguration. Angelou also published five books of poetry, including I Shall Not Be Moved three books of essays, including Letter to My Daughter children’s books and six long-form poems, including Mother and On the Pulse of Morning, which she read at the 1992 inauguration of President Bill Clinton. Undeterred, she wrote several more books of autobiography.ĭr. The book was banned by many schools and colleges because of its frank portrayal of childhood rape, racism and sexuality. Caged Bird is an intelligent and sophisticated story of how Angelou transformed herself from a victim of racism with an inferiority complex into a self-assured, dignified young woman and civil rights activist. ![]() In 1969, with the publication of her groundbreaking autobiography I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Angelou rose to international prominence. Maya Angelou was a writer, poet, performer and teacher. Louis, Missouri, and raised in Stamps, Arkansas, Dr. Moved to California at age 14 and began her career as a performer in San Franciscoīiography current as of induction in 2019īorn Marguerite Johnson in St.Online Field Trip Scholarship ApplicationĬourtesy of CMG Worldwide.Film Screening: “The Great American Lowrider Tradition”.
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