Maya Angelou Biography

Fast Facts

• Her 1972 screenplay "Georgia, Georgia" was the first ever written by an African American woman to be filmed, and was later nominated for a Pulitzer Prize
• Studied dance and drama at the Labor School in San Francisco and later studied modern dance with Martha Graham
• Recorded her first album, "Calypso Lady," in 1957, and moved to New York the following year, where she wrote and performed in "Cabaret for Freedom․"
• Toured Europe as a dancer with the opera "Porgy and Bess" in 1954 and 1955
• Quote: "I'm Maya Angelou - whatever that means to whomever it means - because my mother loved me, and my grandmother loved me, and my brother loved me․ And they all told me I could do whatever I wanted to do․"
• Spent several years abroad in the 1960s, serving as editor for The Arab Observer in Cairo and later teaching at the University of Ghana
• Best known as an author and poet whose biography series includes "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" and "Gather Together in My Name․"
• At the age of 14, she became the first female African American cable car conductor in San Francisco
• Was asked by President Clinton to compose a poem, which she called "On the Pulse of the Morning," for his inauguration in 1993
• Worked with both Malcolm X, whom she had met in Ghana, and Martin Luther King, Jr․, who asked her to work with his Southern Christian Leadership Conference