Maya Angelou Influences

Maya Angelou is a very influential person because she did things that have changed the world, she worked hard all her life, and her poems were inspirational to many people.

Early Life

Marguerite Annie Johnson Angelou or Maya Angelou was born on April 4, 1928, in St. Louis, Missouri (Source 3). Even though she was born in St. Louis she was raised in Arkansas with her brother and grandmother because of her parent's divorce (Source 4). When she was 13 she and her brother moved to San Francisco, California to live with their mother (Source 5).

When Maya Angelou was a teenager she got a scholarship to a dance and drama school in San Francisco, called George Washington High School. There she studied dance at the California Labor School (Source 3). Later she dropped out of school to become the first African American female cable car conductor (Source 5). She came back to school and got pregnant with a baby boy. After her high school graduation, when she was sixteen years old, she gave

While she was working there she met some people working in the Civil Rights Movement (Source 5). In the 1950's Angelou heard Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. speak at an event she went to. Close to that time she also met Malcolm X (Source 3). She became a civil rights activist and helped Malcolm X start the Organization of African American Unity (Source 5). He later died and their plans were stopped (Source 5). Angelou got into T.V but she still worked as an activist with Martin Luther King Jr. (Source 5). Martin Luther King asked Maya Angelou if she would become his northern coordinator for for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and she agreed (Source 4). She and Martin Luther King became good friends and it broke her heart when he was assassinated on her birthday, April 4, 1968, (Source 5). Her good friend, James Baldwin, helped her get over his death and find her passion, which was writing (Source