![]() ![]() ![]() When Angelou, just seventeen, graduated from high school and gave birth to a son, Guy, she began to work as the first African American and first female street car conductor in San Francisco. Angelou graduated at the top of her eighth-grade class.Īngelou attended George Washington High School in San Francisco and took lessons in dance and drama on a scholarship at the California Labor School. Flowers: A Moment of Friendship (1986), emphasized the importance of the spoken word, explained the nature of and importance of education, and instilled in her a love of poetry. Flowers, as Angelou recalled in her children’s book Mrs. Flowers, an educated African American woman, finally got her to speak again. Du Bois, and Paul Lawrence Dunbar, as well as canonical works by William Shakespeare, Charles Dickens, and Edgar Allan Poe. She read Black authors like Langston Hughes, W. Angelou remained mute for five years, but developed a love for language. When the man was murdered by her uncles for his crime, Angelou felt responsible, and stopped talking. In one of its most evocative (and controversial) moments, Angelou describes how she was first cuddled then raped by her mother’s boyfriend when she was just seven years old. Louis and Stamps, Arkansas, where she lived with her brother and paternal grandmother. Angelou was awarded over 50 honorary degrees before her death.Īngelou’s most famous work, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969), deals with her early years in Long Beach, St. In 2010, she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor in the U.S., by President Barack Obama. In 2000, Angelou was awarded the National Medal of Arts by President Bill Clinton. Neubauer in Southern Women Writers: The New Generation, Angelou was recognized “as a spokesperson for… all people who are committed to raising the moral standards of living in the United States.” She served on two presidential committees, for Gerald Ford in 1975 and for Jimmy Carter in 1977. She was also an educator and served as the Reynolds professor of American Studies at Wake Forest University. As a civil rights activist, Angelou worked for Dr. Angelou had a broad career as a singer, dancer, actress, composer, and Hollywood’s first female black director, but became most famous as a writer, editor, essayist, playwright, and poet. An acclaimed American poet, storyteller, activist, and autobiographer, Maya Angelou was born Marguerite Johnson in St. ![]()
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