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Celebrated writer, artiste, civil rights icon Maya Angelou dies at age 86
Maya Angelou
Maya Angelou, the award-winning writer, poet, actress and civil rights activist, was found dead Wednesday morning inside her Winston-Salem, N.C., home.
The 86-year-old icon, who survived a childhood rape that left her mute to find a voice heard around the world, was discovered by her caretaker, according to an announcement from Wake Forest University.
Angelou lived in an 18-room home on the campus, where she taught American Studies.
The increasingly frail Angelou was battling heart problems, and recently canceled her appearance at an event in her honor scheduled for this Friday.
The often lauded Angelou was set to received the “Beacon of Life Award” as part of major league baseball’s annual Civil Rights Games. Angelou was a Pulitzer Prize nominee and repeat White House guest, reading the poem “On the Pulse of Morning” at President Bill Clinton’s 1993 inauguration.
U.S. President Barack Obama, honored her in February 2011 with a Medal of Freedom.
In her last post via Twitter, Angelou offered one parting bit of advice: “Listen to yourself and in that quietude you might hear the voice of God.”
The best-selling St. Louis native, during her remarkable lifetime, published more than 30 titles and received more than 50 honorary degrees.
Her breakthrough book was her best-selling 1970 memoir, “I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings,” a work encouraged by her novelist friend James Baldwin. The book made literary history as the first non-fiction best-seller by an African American woman, and became the first of 6 autobiographical works.
She continued to break down barriers with her writing, penning the screenplay and the score for the 1972 film “Georgia, Georgia.” She was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize that same year for her poetry collection “Just Give Me a Drink of Cool Water’ fore I Diiie.”
Angelou was often on the front lines of history and pop culture. She was mentored by Baldwin, and mentored Oprah Winfrey. She worked for both Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr., and befriended Nelson Mandela.
She earned an Emmy nomination for her work in “Roots,” and studied modern dance with Martha Graham.
The 1968 assassination of King occurred on her April 4 birthday, and she stopped celebrating the event for years afterward. Angelou would instead send flowers to King’s widow, Coretta. Mrs. King, until her death in 2006, would in turn send flowers to Angelou.
Born Marguerite Annie Johnson, the future writer grew up amid poverty and racism after a divorce relocated the child to small town Stamps, Arkansas, where she lived with her brother and grand mother.
Despite the hard times, Angelou long maintained that living in the Deep South also imbued her with the faith and values of the African American family and culture.
She began writing her earliest poems at age 9, and graduated at the top of her eighth-grade class. Angelou wrote about the women who convinced her to speak again in the 1986 children’s book “Mrs. Flowers: A Moment of Friendship.”
Her early adulthood was tumultuous: A single mother at 17, work in a strip club, as a waitress and a cook; running a brothel; marriage and divorce. She was also San Francisco’s first African American female cable-car conductor.
But Angelou’s artistic side soon emerged, and she landed a gig singing in San Francisco’s Purple Onion cabaret. Billie Holliday once sang a sweet lullaby to her son Guy, and gave his mom a back-handed compliment. “You’re going to be famous,” she said. “But it won’t be for singing.”
By the mid-‘50s, Angelous was touring Europe in a production of “Porgy and Bess.” She later studied dance with Graham, and performed with Alvin Ailey. There was even a 1957 Angelou album, “Calypso Lady.” She later captured 3 Grammys for her spoken word albums.
She relocated to Africa in 1960, and met Malcolm X while in Ghana. She took a job with the charismatic leader and returned to the United States. Her breakthrough memoir followed the dark days after the King killing in Memphis.
Baldwin brought the mourning Angelou to a party, which led to an introduction to a Random House editor. Baldwin supported her in the process, and the stunning result was “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.” The book covered her life from birth to the birth of her son, Guy.
Her final autobiographical volume, “A Song Flung up to Heaven,” was published in 2002.
Source: Associated Press