Essay About Maiden Name And Following Decades

Maya Angelou
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Maya Angelou
Name originally Marguerite some sources say Marguerita Johnson; surname is
pronounced “An-ge-lo”; born April 4, 1928, in St. Louis, Missouri, United States;
daughter of Bailey a doorkeeper and naval dietician and Vivian a nurse and
realtor; maiden name, Baxter Johnson; married Tosh Angelou divorced c. 1952;
married Paul Du Feu, December, 1973 divorced; children: Guy Johnson.
By the time she was in her early twenties, Maya Angelou had been a Creole
cook, a streetcar conductor, a cocktail waitress, a dancer, a madam, and an
unwed mother. The following decades saw her emerge as a successful singer,
actress, and playwright, an editor for an English-language magazine in Egypt, a
lecturer and civil rights activist, and a popular author of five collections of poetry
and five autobiographies
“On the Pulse of Morning” at Bill Clintons presidential inauguration, an occasion
that gave her wide recognition.
Angelou is hailed as one of the great voices of contemporary black literature
and as a remarkable Renaissance woman. She began producing books after
some notable friends, including author James Baldwin, heard Angelous stories of
her childhood spent shuttling between rural, segregated Stamps, Arkansas,
where her devout grandmother ran a general store, and St. Louis, Missouri,
where her worldly, glamorous mother lived. 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
was published in 1970 with great critical