Maya Angelou was a renowned memorist, poet, and activist. Anglelou turned her life experiences into profound literary masterpieces that have left an imprint on the American literary canon. Angelou was a pioneer and served as an inspiration for the poets, writers, and artists that followed her.

Angelou was born Marguerite Ann Johnson on April 4th, 1928 in St. Louis, Missouri. Angelou’s parents divorced when she was a small child. After the divorce she and her brother were sent to Stamps, Arkansas to live with their grandmother. Angelou was primarily raised by her grandmother and her brother Bailey who gave her the nickname “Maya”. When Angelou was seven years old, she and her brother were returned to their mother in St. Louis for a short time. During this time, Angelou was raped by her mother’s boyfriend. Angelou told her brother, who in turn told the whole family. As a result, her mother’s boyfriend was jailed for a short time. Days after his release was murdered by Angelou’s uncles. At eight years old, she and her brother were sent back to Stamps, Arkansas.

After the murder of her rapist, Angelou became a mute; she later said she felt that her voiced caused his death and vowed to never speak again. She stayed mute for nearly five years until she met a woman named Mrs. Bertha Flowers, who introduced her to the writings of Edgar Allen Poe, Shakespeare, Charles Dickens, and other classic authors. Flowers also encouraged the young Angelou to rediscover her voice through reciting poetry. Slowly but surely, she reclaimed her voice and by fourteen she had her voice back and a profound proclivity for literature and writing. Angelou discovered the works of Paul Lawrence Dunbar, W.E.B DuBois, and Langston Hughes at her local library and their works helped her make sense of the racism and hatred she observed growing up in strongly segregated small town Arkansas. These works and life experiences would shape her later writings and activism.

Shortly before WWII, Angelou and her brother moved again to live with their mother, this time in Oakland, California. Once the war broke out, Angelou tried to join the Women’s Army Corps but was denied because of her affiliation with the California Labor School where she took dance and drama lessons due to the school’s alleged communist ties. Determined to work, Angelou applied to work as a street car conductor but was denied because of her race. After relentlessly applying and lying about her age, she was hired and thus became the first African American female streetcar conductor in San Francisco.

By the time Angelou graduated high school, she had quit her conductor job and gave birth to a son whom she named Clyde. To support her son, she took several odd jobs including: shimmy dancing at a nightclub, fry cook, prostitution, and pimping. In 1950, she had a short marriage to a Greek ex-sailor, Tosh Angelos, whose last name she would adapt into “Angelou”. After her divorce, Angleou moved to New York, to study dance and worked in the Purple Onion cabaret. he fifties was also when she began her career as an activist and writer; Angelou met James Baldwin through her membership with the Harlem Writers Guild and became the northern coordinator of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

In the sixties, Angelou left America with her son for Africa, living in Cairo then Ghana. At the end of the decade, she returned to America and published her first autobiography, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969), a poetic memoir detailing her life from her rape at seven until the birth of her son at seventeen. She was encouraged to write about her life by her friend James Baldwin and after hesitation, she agreed.Thus her world renowned autobiography was born. She followed up her first work with five other autobiographies dedicated to different phases of her life. Angelou’s autobiographies are unique in that she utilized often blurred lines between the truth and memories.

Angelou has also authored a critically acclaimed collection of poetry in 1971 titled, Just Give me a Drink of Water ‘fore I Diiie, which received a nomination for a Pulitzer Prize. She has published collections of essays, acted, and had the screenplay for her movie Georgia, Georgia turned into film in 1972. During the heights of her career Angelou became an icon of black American culture and the broader popular culture. She made appearances in movies, radio, and television; she was invited to read her poem “On the Pulse of Morning” at Bill Clinton’s inauguration. Angelou has received countless awards and honors including the National Medal of Arts, a Grammy, NAACP Image Award, Presidential Medal of Freedom, and thirty honorary degrees.

When Angelou died on May 24th, 2014 there was an outpouring of tributes, honors, and condolences from authors, artists, media figures, and even U.S. presidents Obama and Clinton.