Maya Angelou Does it All
Before it became fashionable for women to do it all, Maya Angelou was doing it all. Born Marguerite Ann Johnson on April 4th, 1928 in St. Louis, Missouri, Ms. Angelou’s accomplishments include dancer, memoirist, Civil Rights Activist, poet, playwright, singer, author, and actress. In 1977 she was nominated for an Emmy for her portrayal as Nyo Botto in Roots based on author Alex Haley’s acclaimed book of the same title.
Ms. Angelou’s achievements did not come without a price. After her parents’ divorce when she was three years old, she and her brother Bailey were sent to Stamps, Arkansas to live with their grandmother. After four years of living in Stamps, Maya and her brother were sent to St. Louis, Missouri to live with their mother. It was there she was raped by her mother’s boyfriend. After Maya was forced to testify in his trial, he was found guilty. Later when Maya heard that her attacker had been killed, young Maya refused to speak to anyone besides Bailey, feeling responsible for the man’s death. In her well-known book, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, she writes, “I was seven and a half and I thought that my voice had killed him, that if I hadn’t spoken his name, that the man would still be alive and so I took responsibility for his death and stopped talking.” It was through her grandmother’s encouragement and the reading of poetry and literature that Maya found her voice again.
By the time Dr. Angelou was in her early twenties, she had been a Creole cook, the first black female streetcar conductor, a cocktail waitress, a dancer, a madam, as well as a single mother.
After her divorce from her first husband, Greek sailor Tosh Angelos, she adopted the stage name of Maya, the nickname her brother had given to her, and Angelou, a variation of her first husband’s last name.
While she studied writing in New York, she became a member of the Harlem Writers’ Guild. It was in New York that Angelou met and fell in love with her second husband, freedom fighter South African civil rights activist Vusumzi Make. In 1960 Vusumzi and Maya, with her young son Guy, moved to Cairo, Egypt. In Egypt, she worked as the editor for the English-only weekly newspaper, The Arab Observer. After three years, the marriage ended, and Angelou left Cairo and moved to Ghana where she and her son made their home. In Africa, she worked as an administrator for the School of Music and Drama at the University of Ghana and as a freelance writer for the African Review.
Dr. Angelou’s many honors include the Chubb Fellowship Award from Yale University in 1970; a National Book Award nomination in 1970 for I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings; a Pulitzer Prize nomination in 1972 for Just Give Me A Cool Drink of Water ‘Fore I Die; a Tony Award nomination in 1973 for her performance in Look Away. In 1976 and 1983, Maya was the recipient of two awards from the Ladies Home Journal-Woman of the Year in Communications and the Top 100 Most Influential Women. In 1983, she received the Matrix Award for outstanding achievements and leadership in her field.
Despite Dr. Maya Angelou’s early struggles, she is an example to all of what can be accomplished with hard work and a determined spirit.
