"There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you."
Maya Angelou
The Caged Bird Sings
Maya Angelou was born Marguerite Annie Johnson in St. Louis, Missouri on April 4, 1928.
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Maya Angelou lived a difficult childhood. When she was very young, her parents split up. She and her brother then went to live with her grandmother in Stamps, Arkansas.
Circa 1930s - Angelou experienced firsthand racial prejudices and discrimination in Arkansas. She also suffered at the hands of a family friend around the age of 7. During a visit with her mother in St. Louis she was sexually assaulted by her mother's boyfriend. Her uncles killed him. Angelou was so traumatized by the experience, that she stopped talking and lived as a mute. She moved to Arkansas again.
September 1, 1939 - September 2, 1945: World War II
1935 - 1945: Angelou moved to San Francisco, California where she won a scholarship to study dance and acting at the California Labor School. She also became the first black female cable car conductor.
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In 1952, the future literary icon wed Anastasios Angelopulos, a Greek sailor from whom she took her professional name - a blend of her childhood nickname, "Maya" and a shortened version of his surname.
Mid-1950s: Angelou's career as a performer began to take off. She landed a role in a touring production of Porgy and Bess, later appearing in the off-Broadway production of Calypso Heat Wave (1957) and releasing her first album, Miss Calypso (1957).
In the 1960s, she moved to Egypt and then in Ghana, working as an editor and a freelance writer. She also held a position at the University of Ghana for a time.
1969: She wrote about her childhood and young adult years in, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, which made literary history as the first nonfiction best-seller by an African-American woman. She becomes an international star!
In 1972, Maya Angelou wrote a dramatic play called Georgia, Georgia and became the first African-American woman to have her screenplay produced. She went on to earn a Tony award nomination for her role in the play Look Away (1973) and an Emmy for Roots (1977)
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Not only has Angelou written numerous autobiographies throughout the 1970s, 80s and 2000s, she has also written poetry collections. Just Give Me a Cool Drink of Water 'Fore I Die was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize in 1971.
On January 1993, Angelou recited her most famous poems, "On the Pulse of Morning" for President Bill Clinton's inaugural ceremony. Angelou won a Grammy Award for the audio version of the poem.
"A brilliant writer, a fierce friend, and a truly phenomenal woman. Angelou had the ability to remind us that we are all God's children; that we all have something to offer." - Barack Obama
On May 28, 2014, Maya Angelou died at her home in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. She was 86 years old.