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Maya Angelou

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Marguerite Annie Johnson was Maya Angelou’s name at birth. She was born on April 4, 1928 in St. Louis, Missouri. Angelou started going by Maya because her little brother could not pronounce Marguerite, so he would call her “My-a sister” which later turned to Maya. Maya Angleou was the daughter of “her mother Vivian Baxter who was a nurse and part time she worked as card dealer in a casino, her father named Bailey Johnson he was a doorman at an apartment building. Then she had an older brother named Bailey Jr. that was one-years old.” Growing up Maya did not have an easy-going childhood. Her parents got a divorce when she was three years old and sent her and brother Bailey, Jr. to live with their grandmother in Stamps, Arkansas. While staying …show more content…

The marriage did not last that long. It ended in 1954 and then she danced professionally at Purple Onion as a calypso dancer. This is where Maya Angelou got her last name, she kept her last name from her ex-husband. During her time working she met a novelist named John Oliver Killens. In 1959 he helped Angelou publish her book and she was able to get involved in Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). She travelled to Ghana and met a man named Guy. In Accra, she met Malcolm X and became close friends with him. Angelou participated in civil rights organizations like the Organization of Afro-American Unity. After that in 1968 Martin Luther King, Jr. asked Maya Angelou to organize a march. Maya Angleou wrote an autobiography called I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1970). Based on the article by Paula Stewart Brush stated, “offer their descriptions of experience, race does not appear as more significant; race is not prioritized over gender”. In the autobiography by Angleou she talks about her life and the abusive she experienced from Mr. Freeman. Angleou’s young protagonist is personal or universal, or on race, gender, identity, displacement, or a combination of these.
The civil rights movement is the main motivation for her entire poem called “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings”. By the 1970s Toni Cade’s the Black Woman: An Anthology (2005) featured many other black women in public to use their literary voice. In I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Angelou recounts many explosive incidents of the racial discrimination she experienced as a child. In the 1930s, Stamps was a fully segregated town. Maya uses a lot of metaphors to talk about racism. “But a caged bird stands on the grave of

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1233 Words | 5 Pages

On April 4th of 1928 Maya Angelou was born Marguerite Johnson in St. Louis, Missouri. She was given the name “Maya” by her brother, Bailey. Both Maya and Bailey were sent to live with their grandmother in Stamps, Arkansas after her parents divorced. When Maya went to visit her mother at the age of eight she was raped by her mother’s boyfriend.

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729 Words | 3 Pages

Other than that she was An author, poet , screenwriter, etc. With being African American, Maya had experience with first hand racial prejudices and discrimination in Arkansas, where

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705 Words | 3 Pages

Maya Angelou published her novel I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings in the late 1960s to shed light on her personal experiences as a girl growing up in the segregated South. She writes unfiltered depictions of rape and sexual abuse, along with topics such as racism and teenage pregnancy. Her novel, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings became censored in America in 2002 due to these topics. Regardless of this novel being censored, it holds significant value in the lessons it teaches.

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1041 Words | 5 Pages

April 4, 1929, St. Louis, Missouri was the birth of the multitalented, Marguerite Annie Johnson. Family of Marguerite is mother, Vivian Baxter Johnson, father, Bailey Johnson, and brother, Bailey Johnson, Jr. Later in the early twenties of Marguerite Johnsons’ life, she changed her name to Maya Angelou. Since the divorce of Maya’s parents, her life has been nothing but an uncontrollable rollercoaster. As a youth, Maya Angelou had to eventually overcome her strugglers and regain what she once lost years ago when troubled occurred.

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740 Words | 3 Pages

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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291 Words | 2 Pages

Maya Angelou was a very soulful and light person. She always looked content but there were periods in her life where things didn’t go as planned. She was born on April 4th 1928, In St. Louis Missouri the state of the Norton grape. When she was three she was sent to live with her grandma in Stamps, Arkansas. Annie (her grandmother owned the town’s only black owned convenience store.

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388 Words | 2 Pages

Dancer, actress, editor, cook, madam, singer. Maya Angelou at the age of 40 was doing all of these things, and then at the age of 41 she became an author. I chose this person because I think it was interesting how managed to do all of these shows on broadway, and got to create a whole bunch of books herself. Many people interviewed her, about her books and everyone finds all her books inspiring, and everything else she does is inspiring. Another reason I also picked Maya Angelou is because she was one of the first black woman to have certain screenplays and be on different shows and sing.

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280 Words | 2 Pages

Have you ever heard of a civil rights activist named Maya Angelou. Well, she was born on April 4, 1928. Her parents were Vivian Baxter Johnson and Bailey Johnson. All her life she wanted to contribute to the civil rights movement. Wanting to help out as much as she possibly could.

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802 Words | 4 Pages

Maya Angelou recalls the first seventeen years of her life, discussing her unsettling childhood in her autobiography, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. Maya and Bailey were sent from California to the segregated South to live with their grandmother, Momma. At the age of eight, Maya went to stay with her mother in St. Louis, where she was sexually abused and raped by her mother’s boyfriend, Mr. Freeman. Maya confronts these traumatic events of her childhood and explores the evolution of her own strong identity. Her individual and cultural feelings of displacement, caused by these incidents of sexual abuse, are mediated through her love for literature.

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842 Words | 4 Pages

When thinking of a historical figure, many imagine a president, king, or general that lead a country to greatness, but never realized some could be the ones who influence the minds of society. Although not thought of as anything, writers and poets hold the key to shaping the society’s mindset without even knowing it. Being a civil rights activist, social activist, and role model for women makes Maya Angelou a historical figure who has made a huge impact in American society and in American history. Born poor and black, she was a childhood victim of rape, shamed into silence. She was a young single mother who had to work at strip clubs for a living.

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514 Words | 3 Pages

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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535 Words | 3 Pages

His poem Sympathy is just one example of how he felt trapped like a caged bird in his life. Even though the Civil War was over, African Americans still did not have as many privileges and opportunities as most White people had. Most of Dunbar’s writing showed his perspective of life and the struggles that came with it. Maya Angelou was born in 1928 and suffered a hard childhood that later on affected her writing. When she was eight years old, Maya was sexually abused and raped by her mother’s boyfriend.

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1975 Words | 8 Pages

Angelou’s contribution to the Civil Rights Movement and her achievements as an activist were remarkable. While these achievements seem to be enough to last a lifetime, the Civil Rights Movement was only the beginning for Angelou. Angelou worked as an outspoken Civil Rights activist during the movement. But even after the Civil Rights Movement had ended, she continued to be a voice of humanity, speaking out against anything that harmed the human spirit. Angelou moved on to influence American society as a whole, from the 1970’s to the day she died, May 28, 2014.

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793 Words | 4 Pages

Being of African American origin and having a very difficult background full of discrimination and racial prejudice, Maya Angelou was then acting to protect and defend rights of other. All the set of activities she carried out just proves how important she was in terms of development of the America society. Where was

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935 Words | 4 Pages

Life is a journey that is challenging for many people. As a result, many do not live up to their full potential. Nevertheless, there are always few distinguished people in every generation who master the art of living better than everyone else. Such individuals emerge as icons of the society and leave phenomenal legacies. Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King, and Maya Angelou are outstanding souls who made their communities and the world a better place.

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