Dr. Maya Angelou
Biography
Dr. Maya Angelou is hailed as one of the great voices of contemporary black
literature and as a remarkable Renaissance woman. A mesmerizing vision
of grace, swaying and stirring when she moves; Dr. Angelou captivates her
audiences lyrically with vigor, fire and perception. She has the unique
ability to shatter the opaque prisms of race and class between reader and
subject throughout her books of poetry and her autobiographies.
Dr. Angelou, born Marguerite Johnson on April 4, 1928, 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 U.S. and abroad and is a lifetime Reynolds professor
of American Studies at Wake Forest University in North Carolina since
1981. She has authored twelve best selling books and numerous magazine
articles earning her Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award nominations.
In 1993, Angelou became the second poet in US History to have the honor
of writing and reciting original work at the Presidential Inauguration.
On the Pulse of Morning, at Bill Clinton's presidential inauguration,
was an occasion that gave her wide recognition for which she was awarded
a Grammy award (best spoken word).
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.
Dr. Angelou, poet, was among the first African-American women to hit
the bestsellers lists with
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, a chronicle of her life up to age
sixteen (and ending with the birth of her son, Guy), which was published
in 1970 with great critical and commercial success.
In the sixties, at the request of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Dr.
Angelou became the northern coordinator for the Southern Christian Leadership
Conference and in 1975 she received the Ladies Home Journal Woman of
the Year Award in communications. She received numerous honorary degrees
and was appointed by President Jimmy Carter to the National Commission
on the Observance of International Woman's Year and by President Ford
to the American Revolutionary Bicentennial Advisory Council. She is
on the board of the American Film Institute and is one of the few female
members of the Director's Guild.
In the film industry, through her work in script writing and directing,
Dr. 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, which was the first by a black woman to
be filmed. In theatre, she produced, directed and starred in Cabaret
for Freedom in collaboration with Godfrey Cambridge at New York's Village
Gate; starred in Genet's The Blacks at St Mark's Playhouse; and adapted
Sophocles Ajax, which premiered in Los Angeles in 1974. |
