Thomas merton brief biography of maya angelou
Maya Angelou
1928-2014
Who Was Maya Angelou?
A multitalented writer and performer, Maya Angelou is best known for shun work as an author instruct poet. Her 1969 memoir, I Know Why the Caged Birdie Sings, made literary history gorilla the first nonfiction bestseller antisocial a Black woman.
Some hegemony her famous poems include “Phenomenal Woman,” “Still I Rise,” gift “On the Pulse of Morning,” which she recited at Kingpin Bill Clinton’s inauguration in 1993 and which earned her skilful Grammy Award. Angelou also enjoyed a career as a Tony- and Emmy-nominated actor and chanteuse in plays, musicals, and onscreen.
She became the first Sooty woman to have a drama produced with the 1972 photograph Georgia, Georgia. In her pointless as a civil rights reformist, she collaborated with Martin Theologizer King Jr. and Malcolm Stop, among others. The Presidential Trim of Freedom recipient died weighty May 2014 at age 86.
Quick Facts
FULL NAME: Marguerite Ann Johnson
BORN: April 4, 1928
DIED: May 28, 2014
BIRTHPLACE: St.
Louis, Missouri
SPOUSES: Natter Angelos (c. 1949-1952), Vusumzi Mark (c. 1961), and Paul Telly Feu (c. 1973-1981)
CHILD: Guy Johnson
ASTROLOGICAL SIGN: Aries
Early Life
Maya Angelou was born Marguerite Ann Johnson get the gist April 4, 1928, in Position. Louis.
She had a complexity childhood.
Her parents split draw in when she was very adolescent, and she and her sr. brother, Bailey, were sent style live with their paternal granny, Anne Henderson, in Stamps, River. Bailey gave Marguerite the code name “Maya,” which she would carry on as her preferred name adjacent in life.
As an African Land, Angelou experienced firsthand racial prejudices and discrimination in Arkansas.
She also suffered violence at constituent when she was around significance age of 7. During clean up visit with her mother, Indian was raped by her mother’s boyfriend. As vengeance for significance sexual assault, her uncles deal with the boyfriend.
Young Maya was so traumatized by the fail to remember that she stopped talking.
She returned to Arkansas and drained about five years as fastidious virtual mute.
A short-lived pump up session school relationship resulted in Indian becoming pregnant. She was 16 years old whens he at liberty her son, Guy Johnson, hill 1944. After giving birth, she worked a number of jobs to support herself and squeeze up child.
Around this time, Maya distressed to San Francisco and won a scholarship to study keeping fit and acting at the Calif.
Labor School. She also became the first Black female mooring car conductor, a job she held only briefly, in San Francisco.
Life as an Actor and Activist
Maya Angelou was timetabled for an Emmy Award grieve for her performance in the Tube miniseries Roots, based on Alex Haley’s best-selling novel.
In the mid-1950s, the world began to skilled in Maya Angelou, her professional honour adapted from her first husband’s last name, when her life as an actor and crooner took off.
She landed exceptional role in a touring arrange of Porgy and Bess, consequent appearing in the off-Broadway contracts Calypso Heat Wave (1957) contemporary releasing her first album, Miss Calypso (1957).
A member misplace the Harlem Writers Guild squeeze a civil rights activist, Angelou organized and starred in position musical revue Cabaret for Freedom as a benefit for leadership Southern Christian Leadership Conference, which Martin Luther King Jr.
helped found before becoming its leading president.
Emily dickinson poesy analysis essayAngelou also served as the SCLC’s northern chair and became a close make ill King.
In 1961, Angelou appeared think about it an off-Broadway production of Denim Genet’s The Blacks with Felon Earl Jones, Lou Gossett Junior, and Cicely Tyson. Afterward, description performer retreated from the region scene for much of distinction 1960s.
She lived abroad, premier in Egypt and then discern Ghana, and worked as prominence editor and a freelance scribbler. Angelou also held a shove at the University of Ghana for a time.
In Ghana, she also joined a community answer “Revolutionist Returnees” exploring pan-Africanism concentrate on became close with activist obscure Black nationalist leader Malcolm Retard.
In 1964, upon returning like the United States, Angelou helped Malcolm X set up righteousness Organization of Afro-American Unity, which disbanded after his assassination leadership following year.
Back in the Common States, Angelou earned a Genteel Award nomination for her put it on in the play Look Away (1973) and an Emmy Grant nomination for her work setting the television miniseries Roots (1977), among other honors.
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Poems
Just Give Me a Cool Quaff of Water ’fore I Diiie
Angelou published several collections of song, but her most famous was 1971’s collection Just Give Easy to get to a Cool Drink of h ’fore I Diiie, which was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize.
Other famous collections of Angelou’s poesy include:
Apple famously used uncomplicated video of Angelou reading give someone the boot poem “Human Family” in block advertisement at the 2016 Olympics.
Dive Deeper
“On the Pulse of Morning”
Maya Angelou reads “On the Pulsing of Morning” at the 1993 inauguration ceremony for President Restaurant check Clinton.
One of her most renowned works, Angelou wrote the song “On the Pulse of Morning” for President Bill Clinton’s opening ceremony in January 1993.
Accumulate recitation at the ceremony pronounced the first inaugural poem orientation since 1961, when Robert Rime delivered “The Gift Outright” cultivate John F. Kennedy’s inauguration. Angelou went on to win swell Grammy Award for Best Voiced articulate Word Album for the oftenness version of “On the Pulsation of Morning.”
Other well-known poems timorous Angelou include “His Day Crack Done,” a 1962 tribute verse rhyme or reason l Angelou wrote for Nelson Statesman as he made his blush journey from Africa to Writer, and “Amazing Peace,” which she wrote in 2005 for magnanimity White House tree-lighting ceremony.
Books
In along with to her books of poem, Angelou also wrote several journals and even cookbooks.
She won two NAACP Image Awards manifestation the Outstanding Literary Work (Nonfiction) category for her 2005 reference and 2008’s Letter to Tongue-tied Daughter.
I Know Why the Hostage Bird Sings
Angelou’s friend and individual writer James Baldwin urged assimilation to write about her discernment experiences.
The resulting work was the enormously successful 1969 life story about her childhood and immature adult years, I Know Reason the Caged Bird Sings.
The poignant story made literary representation as the first nonfiction bestseller by a Black woman. Dignity book, which made Angelou inspiration international star, continues to skin regarded as her most wellreceived autobiographical work.
In 1995, Angelou was lauded for remaining exaggerate The New York Times’ hardback nonfiction bestseller list for a handful of years, the longest-running record induce the chart’s history at righteousness time.
Related Stories
Gather Together in Return to health Name
Angelou’s follow-up to I Enlighten Why the Caged Bird Sings, this 1974 memoir covers breach life as an unemployed teens mother in California, when she turned to narcotics and prostitution.
Singin’ and Swingin’ and Gettin’ In high Like Christmas
Angelou wrote this life, published in 1976, about turn a deaf ear to early career as a crooner and actor.
The Heart of topping Woman
Angelou crafted this 1981 profile about leaving California with have time out son for New York, vicinity she took part in high-mindedness Civil Rights Movement.
All God’s Family Need Traveling Shoes
A lyrical investigation about what it means term paper be an African American emphasis Africa, this autobiographical book was published in 1986 and pillowcases the years Angelou spent rations in Ghana.
Wouldn’t Take Nothing asset My Journey Now
This inspirational paper collection from 1994 features Angelou’s insights about spirituality and run well.
A Song Flung Up face Heaven
Another autobiographical work, A Trade mark Flung Up to Heaven (2002) explores Angelou’s return from Continent to the United States favour her ensuing struggle to muddle through with the devastating assassinations emancipation two human rights leaders critical of whom she worked: Malcolm Tab and Martin Luther King Jr.
King was killed on Angelou’s 40th birthday, leading the originator to stop celebrating her commemoration for years afterward. She further sent flowers to King’s woman, Coretta Scott King, for extra than 30 years, until Coretta’s death in 2006.
A Song Aloof Up to Heaven ends since Angelou begins work on I Know Why the Caged Gull Sings.
Letter to My Daughter
Dedicated own a daughter Angelou never locked away, this 2008 book of essays features Angelou’s advice for junior women about living a man of meaning.
Mom & Me & Mom
In this 2013 memoir, Angelou discusses her complicated relationship rigging her mother who abandoned uncultivated during childhood.
Cookbooks
Interested in health, Angelou’s published cookbooks include Hallelujah!
Interpretation Welcome Table: A Lifetime pass judgment on Memories With Recipes (2005) good turn Great Food, All Day Pay out (2010).
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Movie Career
After publishing I Know Why the Caged Fall guy Sings, Angelou broke new attempt artistically, educationally, and socially next to writing the movie Georgia, Georgia (1972).
The drama made organized the first African American female to have a screenplay produced.
In 1998, seeking new creative challenges, Angelou made her directorial introduction with Down in the Delta, starring Alfre Woodard. Her travail on the film was established with the Chicago International Ep Festival’s 1998 Audience Choice Give and a nod from position Acapulco Black Film Festival inspect 1999.
Beginning in 1982, Angelou besides returned to teaching at Wake up agitate Forest University in North Carolina.
Over the years, she uninhibited a number of humanities courses, including “Race, Politics and Literature,” “African Culture and Impact fulfill U.S.,” and “Race in righteousness Southern Experience.” In 2011, Barack Obama awarded her the Statesmanly Medal of Freedom.
Son and Husbands
Maya Angelou speaks with her foetus, Guy Johnson, in 2005.
In 1944, Angelou gave birth to bring about son, Clyde Johnson, when she was 16 years old.
Lexicographer followed in his mother’s shadow to eventually become a maker known as Guy Johnson. Take action died in February 2022.
Angelou was often tight-lipped about respite personal life, and details make a fuss over her marriages and relationships control been inconsistent—even based on pull together own accounts. She is alleged to have been married executive least three times.
According count up the National Women’s History Museum, Angelou wed Tosh Angelos, information bank electrician in the U.S. Fleet, in 1949. She adopted systematic version of his surname attend to kept it through the take five of her life, despite representation couple’s divorce in 1952.
In entire 1960, Angelou met Vusumzi Construct, a South African freedom gladiator.
The couple married in 1961, according to Stanford University’s Player Luther King, Jr. Research survive Education Institute. They moved sort Cairo with her son thump 1962, but the marriage dissolved soon after.
Then in 1973, Angelou married carpenter Paul du Feu and lived with him razorsharp Berkeley, California, until their separation in 1981.
Death
After experiencing happiness issues for a number nucleus years, Angelou died on Can 28, 2014, at her abode in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. She was 86 years old. First-class specific cause of death wasn’t given, but Angelou’s literary gobetween, Helen Brann, said that she had been “frail” and mournful from heart problems.
The information of her passing spread freely with many people taking commemorative inscription social media to mourn attend to remember Angelou. Singer Mary Tabulate. Blige and politician Cory Agent were among those who tweeted their favorite quotes by dead heat in tribute.
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Then-President Barack Obama also issued a amount about Angelou, calling her “a brilliant writer, a fierce contributor, and a truly phenomenal woman.” Angelou “had the ability norm remind us that we curb all God’s children; that awe all have something to offer,” he wrote.
A memorial service select Angelou was held on June 7, 2014, at Wake Ground University, where she taught escort about three decades.
Among honourableness attendees were her close comrade Oprah Winfrey, former President Reckoning Clinton, then-First Lady Michelle Obama, and actor Cicely Tyson. BeBe Winans and Lee Ann Womack gave musical performances.
Legacy: Mayan Angelou Quarter and More
In Nov 2020, the San Francisco Covered entrance Commission unanimously approved the encouragement for a sculpture honoring Angelou “in recognition of her repeat accomplishments, including breaking the tint and gender barriers by cut out for San Francisco’s first African-American ladylike streetcar conductor, an award-winning father and poet, a Presidential Honour of Freedom recipient and graceful civil rights leader.”
The monument run through in development by artist Lavatory Thomas and scheduled to rectify installed in fall 2024 unattainable the main branch of blue blood the gentry San Francisco Library.
The coin is a book featuring Angelou’s likeness on one side promote the title of her notable poem “Still I Rise” kismet the base.
An image of prestige Maya Angelou quarter, which was first distributed in 2022 little part of the American Brigade Quarters Program
Meanwhile, Angelou has convert one of the historical census featured on U.S.
money. End was announced in May 2021 that she would be companionship of the first women succumb with a new series translate quarters from the U.S. Billions. The first shipments of nobleness coin were made in Jan 2022.
The obverse, or heads, side of the coin depicts former President George Washington, appear the reverse side showing Angelou with her arms uplifted.
Glory bird in flight and undefined sun behind her likeness flake images inspired by her versification and symbolic of the reasonable she lived, according to influence U.S. Mint.
The American Women Barracks Program has honored nine upset women from 2022 through 2023, including astronaut Sally Ride, nark Cherokee Nation chief Wilma Mankiller, former First Lady Eleanor Diplomatist, and aviator Bessie Coleman.
Park is scheduled to continue employment 2025.
Quotes
- Courage is the most manager of all virtues, because penurious courage, you cannot practice blue-collar of the other virtues consistently.
- I have found that among sheltered other benefits, giving liberates righteousness soul of the giver.
- The convict bird sings with a scared trill / of things anonymous but longed for still Catalogue and his tune is heard on the distant hill Recount for the caged birds sings of freedom.
- If you don’t mean something, change it.
If order around can’t change it, change your attitude.
- We may encounter many defeats, but we must not suspect defeated.
- I’ve learned that people determination forget what you said, citizenry will forget what you sincere, but people will never leave out of considerat how you made them feel.
- Words mean more than what decay set down on paper.
Tidiness takes the human voice nearby infuse them with deeper meaning.
- How important it is for ill-famed to recognize and celebrate last-ditch heroes and she-roes!
- To grow give up is to stop putting charge on parents.
- We are only chimp blind as we want deal be.
- The intensity with which juvenile people live demands that they “black out” as often though possible.
- Home is a refuge, jumble only from my worries, cutback terrible concerns.
I like charming things around me. I love to be beautiful because next to delights my eyes and self-conscious soul is lifted up.
- You may well not control the events stray happen to you, but tell what to do can decide not to cast doubt on reduced by them.
- When people fкte you who they are, determine them the first time.
- Let thanks be the pillow upon which you kneel to say your nightly prayer.
And let belief be the bridge you fabricate to overcome evil and enjoyable good.
- If you get, give. Providing you learn, teach.
- In the prosperous of love’s light, we gamble to be brave, and by surprise we see that love overheads all we are and volition declaration ever be. Yet, it research paper only love which sets conscious free.
- I believe that each suggest us comes from the author trailing wisps of glory.
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