BIOGRAPHY
Maya Angelou, born April 4, 1928 as Marguerite Johnson in St. Louis, was raised in
segregated rural Arkansas. She is a poet, historian, author, actress, playwright, civil-rights
activist, producer and director. She lectures throughout the US and abroad and is Reynolds
professor of American Studies at Wake Forest University in North Carolina since 1981. She
has published ten best selling books and numerous magazine articles earning her Pulizer Prize
and National Book Award nominations. At the request of President Clinton, she wrote and
delivered a poem at his 1993 presidential inauguration.
Dr. Angelou, who speaks French, Spanish, Italian and West African Fanti, began her career
in drama and dance. 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. In Ghana, she was feature editor of The African Review and taught at the University of
Ghana. In the 1960's, at the request of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Ms. Angelou became the
northern coordinator for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. 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.
In the film industry, through her work in script writing and directing, Maya Angelou has
been a groundbreaker for black women. In television, she has made hundreds of appearances.
Her best-selling autobiographical account of her youth, "I Know Why the Cage Bird Sings,"
won critical acclaim in 1970 and was a two hour TV special on CBS. She has written and
produced several prize winning documentaries, including "Afro-Americans in the Arts," a
PBS special for which she received the Golden Eagle Award. She was also nominated for an
Emmy Award for her acting in Roots, and her screenplay Georgia, Georgia was the first by a
black woman to be filmed.
POEMS
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