Maya Angelou is an American poet, educator, historian, author, actress, playwright, civil-rights activist, producer, and director. She was born Marguerite Annie Johnson in St. Louis, Missouri on April 4, 1928. Her parents divorced when she was only three and she was sent with her brother Bailey to live with their grandmother in the small town of Stamps, Arkansas, where she experienced racism. At the age of eight she was raped by her mother’s boyfriend. She loved music, dance, performance and poetry, so she studied dance and drama and went on to a career in theater. While still in high school Maya Angelou became the first African American female streetcar conductor in San Francisco, California. She has one son.  In 1960, Dr Angelou moved to Cairo, Egypt where she served as editor of the English language weekly the Arab Observer. The next year, she moved to Ghana where she taught at university of Ghana’s School of Music and Drama, worked as feature editor for the African Review and wrote for the Ghanaian Times and the Ghanaian Broadcasting Company.

During her years abroad, she read and studied voraciously, mastering French, Spanish, Italian, Arabic and the West African language Fanti. She met with the American dissident leader Malcolm X in his visits to Ghana, and corresponded with him as his thinking evolved from the racially polarized thinking of his youth to the more inclusive vision of his maturity.

Maya Angelou returned to America in 1964, with the intention of helping Malcolm X build his new Organization of African American Unity. Shortly after her arrival in the United States, Malcolm X was assassinated, and his plans for a new organization died with him. Angelou involved herself in television production and remained active in the Civil Rights Movement, working more closely with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who requested that Angelou serve as Northern Coordinator for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. His assassination, falling on her birthday in 1968, left her devastated. With the guidance of her friend, the novelist James Baldwin, she found solace in writing.

Angelou has been invited by successive Presidents of the United States to serve in various capacities and has received over 30 honorary degrees. Since 1981, she has served as Reynolds Professor of American Studies at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. She has continued to appear on television and in films. She has directed numerous dramatic and documentary programs on television. Her works are centered on themes such as identity, family and racism. Angelou has become recognized and highly respected as a spokesperson for blacks and women. Although some of her more controversial work has been challenged or banned in US schools and libraries, she remains one of the most talented and most influential American artists.
Photographed by Marc Brasz/Corbis