Biography Of Maya Angelou

Marguerite Ann Johnson more commonly known today as “Maya Angelou is an American author and poet” (absolute astronomy, web). She was a key component in the civil rights movement and worked alongside figureheads Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X. In the course of her lifetime she has held several different occupations some of which being a “poet, memoirist, novelist, educator, dramatist, producer, actress, historian, filmmaker, and civil rights activist. Angelou has received over 50 honorary degress, and is a professor of American studies at Wake Forest University.” (Maya Angelou official website) In 1969 one of Angelou’s most notable works I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings was published. This semi biographical work caused her to gain fame “as a spokesperson for the black community and more specifically black women.” (starglimpse, web)
Angelou made many contributions, to the world of literature especially. With the publication of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings in 1969 she became “one of the first African American women to publicly discuss her personal life.” (Wikipedia) Mary Helen Washington wrote in her study Invented Lives: Narratives of Black Women 1860-1960, “Black women autobiographers of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries had been frozen into self- consciousness by the need to defend black women and men against the vicious and prevailing stereotypes. They found it difficult to rewrite themselves as central characters, only in private could they talk about their personal lives.” (Als, The New Yorker)
In perhaps her most notable work I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings “Angelou’s account of her childhood and adolescence chronicles her frequent encounters with racism, sexism, and classism at the same time that she ...

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...ent, a world of respect, a world where all men and women are valued, none higher than the other, none lower than the other because of his or her color or his or her race or his or her religion or cultural persuasion. That is the best we can hope for. And so when we speak of the dream, I think if Martin Luther King said he had a dream, I think this is the dream of America. This is us at our best.”
Another apparent theme in Still I Rise is persistence. For example in lines three and four it says, “You may trod me in the very dirt/ But still, like dust, I’ll rise” (Angelou, 3-4) Angelou like all of us has dealt with her fair share of struggles in life but what makes her so influential and inspiring to so many is her persistence. No matter what obstacles she had to overcome in her life, she sends a message to us all to never give up, and to always keep rising.