4th April: Maya Angelou

This date in 1928 saw the birth of Maya Angelou, US writer. She was more than just a writer as you will discover:

1. Maya Angelou is best known for her autobiographical novels, beginning with I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, published in 1969. The final one, which was published when she was 85, was Mom & Me & Mom, although she was working on an eighth when she died, which would have focussed on her experiences with world leaders.
2. She wasn't just a writer though. During her lifetime she turned her hand to just about every other creative pursuit you can think of. She wrote poetry, sang, danced, acted, wrote screenplays (including Georgia, Georgia, produced by a Swedish film company in 1972 was the first screenplay written by a black woman), wrote Music (Including film soundtracks and music for Roberta Flack). In 1996, she directed a film called Down in the Delta, starring Wesley Snipes. She could cook, too, and her celebration parties, for Thanksgiving, New Year and the like, were legendary. She also wrote two cookery books including one aimed at educating people about weight loss and portion control.
3. One of her first jobs was as the first black female streetcar conductor in San Francisco. Other jobs she held were cook, sex worker, nightclub dancer and performer, and journalist. Angelou was always open about her time as a sex worker and wrote about it in her books. She said, "I wrote about my experiences because I thought too many people tell young folks, 'I never did anything wrong. Who, Moi? – never I. I have no skeletons in my closet. In fact, I have no closet.' They lie like that and then young people find themselves in situations and they think, 'Damn I must be a pretty bad guy. My mom or dad never did anything wrong.' They can’t forgive themselves and go on with their lives."
4. She was born Marguerite Annie Johnson in St. Louis, Missouri. Her father, Bailey, was a doorman and navy dietitian, and her mother Vivian a nurse and card dealer. She had an older brother, Bailey Jr. It was he who gave her the name "Maya" which was derived from "My Sister". She is thought to be partially descended from the Mende people of West Africa.
5. Her parents' marriage ended when Maya was three. The children were sent to live with their grandmother in Arkansas for four years; their father came for them when Maya was eight and gave them back to their mother. Soon afterwards, Maya, aged eight, was raped by her mother's boyfriend, Freeman. She spoke up about it - Freeman was arrested and sent to jail - for one day. He was murdered four days after release, possibly by Maya's uncles. After this, Maya didn't speak for five years, believing that her voice had the power to kill people. During this time, she listened, observed and read a lot, foundations for her later career as a writer.
6. The Angelou part of her name came from her three year marriage to Tosh Angelos, a Greek electrician and aspiring musician. When the marriage ended, she worked as a professional dancer. At first she used the name "Marguerite Johnson", or "Rita", but her bosses thought that "Maya Angelou" was a much more distinctive and memorable name and suggested she used that instead.
7. During 1954 and 1955, Angelou toured Europe with a production of the opera Porgy and Bess. She made a point of learning the language of every country she visited, thus becoming proficient in several languages.
8. She had a long-standing writing ritual which involved getting up early, going to a hotel and checking into a room, having told the staff there to take all the pictures down from the walls of her room. She would take with her a bottle of sherry, a deck of cards to play solitaire, Roget's Thesaurus, and the Bible, and lie on the bed and write all morning, averaging 10-12 pages of a legal pad per day. She would go home in the early afternoon and edit it down to three or four pages in the evening.
9. She counted several civil rights activists among her friends. In 1961, she moved to Egypt with South African freedom fighter Vusumzi Make, where she worked as a newspaper editor. When that relationship ended, she went to Ghana with her son, Guy, so he could go to college there. She stayed there until 1965, working as an administrator at the University of Ghana. During this time she met and became close friends with Malcolm X and returned to America to help him with his civil rights movement. Later, Martin Luther King asked her to organise a march. She put off doing so and was devastated when he, too, was assassinated, on her 40th birthday.
10. In 1993, Angelou recited her poem "On the Pulse of Morning" at the inauguration of President Bill Clinton, becoming the first poet to make an inaugural recitation since Robert Frost at President John F. Kennedy's inauguration in 1961. She was also active in the 2008 campaigns of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.

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