Maya Angelou

 Maya Angelou (/’aendZ@loU/(listen) AN–j@-loh) was an American poet as well as a memoirist and activist for civil rights. Her birth name was Marguerite Annie Johnson on April 4, 1928. Her work includes seven autobiographies as well as three volumes of writing. Her writing also includes a variety of films, plays and TV shows that span more than 50 years. Numerous awards were awarded to her, and she was awarded over fifty honorary degrees. Angelou is best known for her autobiographies, which are a reflection of her childhood as well as her early adult years. After working a variety of odd jobs during her early years, she became a poet. These included sex worker fry cook, nightclub performer, and Southern Christian Leadership Conference coordinator. She also worked as an official in Egypt as well as Ghana during the period of decolonization. She was an actor as well as a writer and director, and also a producer of plays, movies and public television shows. She was the very first Reynolds Professor of American Studies at Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem (North Carolina) in 1982. She was a prominent participant in the Civil Rights Movement, and she was a collaborator alongside Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. She averaged 80 appearances annually on the lecture circuit beginning in the early 1990s. The trend continued into her 80s. Angelou performed her poem "On The Pulse Of Morning" (1993) prior to the inaugural address of Bill Clinton. This made her the first poet since Robert Frost in 1961 to read a recitation for the inaugural ceremony.