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Biography Of Maya Angelou Research Paper

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Harriet Tubman, Fredrick Douglass, Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, and Malcom X are all names that bring to mind the struggle African Americans have faced in the past. All of these figures are memorialized as influential activist who have had a great impact on the lives of Americans today. Maya Angelou, an American poet, memoirist, and civil rights activist, is one of the few black women in history who have used literate to display their struggles. Angelou is best known for her books, including a series of seven autobiographies, starting with the most famous, I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings. Throughout many of her books and poems, Maya Angelou shares her encounters of racism, sexism, and rape in the Jim Crow South. The hardships Maya Angelou experienced can be traced through her early life, her memoir I Know Why The …show more content…

1). Angelou’s parents split up when she was very young, so she and her brother Bailey were sent to live with their grandmother (“Maya Angelou Biography” par. 14). Despite having their grandmother, Momma, and Uncle Willie to substitute for their absent parents, Maya Angelou endured a rough childhood in the south full of first hand racial prejudices and discrimination. Not soon after a family member witnessed the lynching of a black man, Angelou was sent to live with her mother in San Francisco, California. She later, “became pregnant [during] her senior year [of high school] and graduated a few weeks before giving birth to her son, Guy. She left home at 16 and took on the difficult life of a single mother, supporting herself and her son (“America’s Renaissance Woman” par. 3). As a way to provide for her son, Angelou worked as a night club waitress, but this career helped her get discovered by a theater group. (“Maya Angelou is Born” par. 2). This was only the beginning of her successful

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Maya Angelou was one of the most influential literary phenomenons, who created numerous inspiring works and paved the way for many African Americans, while facing discrimination and prejudices. She gave people hope through her countless works of literature and gave people an understanding to what it really feels like to be an African American. Throughout her life, Maya had a very traumatic childhood. Her parents, Vivian Baxter Johnson and Bailey Johnson, had gotten a divorce when she was 3 and she as well as her brother, were sent to live with her grandmother in Stamps, Arkansas.

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III. a. Maya Angelou was an avid writer, speaker, activist and teacher. As a result of the many hardships that she suffered while growing up as a poor black woman in the south she has used her own experiences as the subject matter of her written work. In doing this she effectively shows how she was able to overcome her personal obstacles. Her autobiography “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1970) tells the story of her life and how she overcame and moved forward triumphantly in spite of her circumstances.

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Maya Angelou, born Marguerite Johnson, lived through an unstable early life. She was born in St. Louis, Arkansas, but moved away to Stamps, Arkansas at age three due to her parents’ divorce. There, Angelou lived with her brother, Bailey, and her paternal grandmother (Galenet - Self and a Song of Freedom in the Southern Tradition). As discussed in her first autobiography, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, seven-year old Maya was raped by her mother’s boyfriend. The man was consequently murdered by her uncles, and Maya, feeling responsible for his death, ceased talking and remained speechless for five years.

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Maya Angelou lived during the rampant genocide of the Ku Klux Klan which greatly influenced her life and works. Many difficulties bombarded her daily life, leaving her with every reason to run away and become a mute. In fact, she spent a length of time refusing to speak a word to anybody, and for good reason. Many experiences, both good and bad, were able to be expressed eloquently into her works of literature which awed the world. Maya Angelou lead a captivating life from her early years and throughout her teenage and adult years allowing her to accomplish much.

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“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you” says Maya Angelou. Born April 4th, 1928 to Vivian Baxter Johnson and Bailey Johnson. Her parents split up when she was very young, and her older brother, bailey were sent to live with their fathers mother Anne Anderson in stamps, Arkansas. Who owned a general store. Although her grandmother helped her develop pride and self confidence, Angelou was devastated when she was raped at the age of eight by her mother's boyfriend while on a visit to St. Louis .

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To make matters worse, through the remainder of the time of living with her grandmother, Maya recalled not hearing from her mother for time on end “We didn’t hear from her— we heard maybe twice in seven years or something” (Smithsonian Magazine). Angelou’s life had taken a course unexpected and sent her into a series of harsh thoughts. Though this transition proved rough, Angelou grew closer with her grandmother. The change of motherly influence over her life allowed her to see a woman rooted in

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Maya Angelou was a strong African-American women who made an influential impact on the Civil Rights Movement, in bother her actions, and her literature. Her life experiences and courage helped others, and made her work influential. During Maya’s early life, she experienced many hardships that shaped her into the person many remember her as. Born on April 4, 1928, she only lived in St. Louis, MO for three years before her parents got divorced, and Maya, along with her mother and brother, moved in with her grandparents in Arkansas. At the age of eight, raped by her mother’s boyfriend, Maya learned the power that words possess.

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Their grandmother lived in Stamps, Arkansas, and the transition opened Angelou to many terrible experiences. She lived through racial prejudices and tons of discrimination, simply because of the color of her skin (Biography.com).

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Maya Angelou was born into a life of segregation. This would make one think that she had little to no education, but it was quite the opposite for her. Angelou went to high school at George Washington High in San Francisco, and later went to the California Labor School after winning a scholarship to study dance and acting (Angelou, Maya p.5). Before establishing herself as a writer, Angelou worked as a nightclub entertainer, a streetcar director, and a shake dancer (Maya Angelou Biography). When growing up, she had her mom and brother.

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Maya Angelou was a well-respected author and advocate for civil rights during her time. Her life was extremely impactful on the American society, because of her lifelong obstacles, her strong beliefs in civil rights, her contributions to the literary world and the arts. She had a miserable childhood that empowered her writing, due to the way she was treated as an African American in the 1930's which lead her to become a strong supporter of everyone's Constitutional rights. Maya Angelou's literary works were widely renowned by numerous respected professors and fellow writers. Maya Angelou was born in St. Louis, Missouri on April fourth, 1928.

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Maya Angelou went through some really harsh times to help shape her into the woman she had later become. As Maya lived with her Grandmother she witnessed many accounts of racism. Maya was a very young girl when she had become raped by her mother's boyfriend which changed her as a person and shaped her into who she is today. Maya had also become homeless for a while because she ran away from her father's friends house this made her see the real world and change her outlook in life. At a very young age Maya had become pregnant, which changed her a lot.

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Maya Angelou worked as a professor at Wake Forest University, in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, from 1991 to 2014. As an African American women, one whose life was full of racial discrimination and gender inequality, she had plenty of experience and wisdom to share with her students. During her time working at the university, she taught a variety of humanities courses such as “World Poetry in Dramatic Performance,” “Race, Politics and Literature,” “African Culture and Impact on U.S.,” and “Race in the Southern Experience” (Wake Forest University,

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The world in which Maya Angelou grew up and lived throughout much of her life was one wrought with the ills that slavery and oppression had left upon it. Despite the turbulence that Angelou grew up in, she was an imminently successful woman. Of all her accomplishments, two stand out, her successful career as a poet and her legacy as a civil rights activist. Maya Angelou lived through the inequality and senseless oppression of the African American people. The poem, Still I Rise, was written by Maya Angelou in 1978.

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Maya decided to get a job and support her son by herself. “I had no understanding about anything... But I had the determination to raise my child” (Cox 24). After various jobs at restaurants she decided to start dancing and performed at nightclubs.

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Maya’s innocence showed how as a young age nothing could be understood as to why she could not fight back and stand up for her family. “I was as clearly imprisoned behind the scene as the actors outside were confined to their roles” (Angelou,18). Her grandmother’s wise words after this event led her to become the women she is today. By reminding Maya to always have respect for all her elders, no matter what color, helped shaped Maya Angelou into the most influential world leaders for African Americans.

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