Anyone who’s ever set foot into a classroom has heard the name Maya Angelou. For most of us, her autobiography, “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings is a solid part of 8th grade English curriculum.
Born Margaret Ann Johnson on April 4, 1928, in Missouri, she earned the nickname “Maya” from her older brother Bailey, and it stuck with her. Her last name as a writer was adapted from the surname of one of her early husbands, Tosh Angelos. In many of Angelou’s early biographical works, she talked about growing up in Stamps, Missouri, where she was subject to racial discrimination and cruelty.
Despite the hardships she faced as a young, African American woman in a world at odds with civil liberties, she prevailed, and won a scholarship to study dance and drama in San Francisco. She dropped out of school at fourteen to become a cable car operator. She did manage to finish high school, but was pregnant at graduation, giving birth to her first son just weeks after receiving her diploma.
In order to support herself and her baby, she worked in restaurants, cooking and waitressing. She never quite stopped pursuing her love of the arts, even as she struggled. During the 1950s, she toured Europe with an acting troupe, studied dance with Martha Graham, recorded her first album, and acted off-Broadway. In the 1960s, she lived in Cairo, Egypt, where she edited a weekly English language journal. Her love of travel and culture took her next to Ghana, where she taught dance and drama. She learned and mastered numerous languages, including French, Italian and Fanti.
She worked closely in the 1960s with Malcolm X, helping him build the Organization of African American Unity, and served with Martin Luther King Jr., as a coordinator for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.
She began writing in the late 1960s, and published her first memoir, “I Know why the Caged Bird Sings” in 1970. She also took an active role in television and film, winning a Pulitzer Prize in 1972 for her film “Georgia, Georgia.”
Throughout her life, Angelou has been a writer, a poet an essayist, a civil rights activist, a dancer, a playwright, filmmaker, teacher and an actress. Not a lot of people, much less women, can claim such an active and colorful list of achievements, but Angelou’s passion shines through in every single one of her endeavors.
I’ve been reflecting a lot lately on my own goals and achievements, and reflecting as I wrote this, I found strength and inspiration in all of Maya Angelou’s accomplishments. As a strong woman of the world, I look at her life and believe that anything is possible. It doesn’t matter what you dream for yourself, as long as you allow yourself to not only reach for, but grab them and hold them tight.
Photo via MayaAngelou.com
