Maya Angelou

 Maya Angelou (/’aendZ@loU/(listen) AN–j@-loh) was an American poet writer, memoirist, and activist for civil rights. Her birth name was Marguerite Annie Johnson on April 4 1928. She is best known for her seven autobiographies and three books of essays. Her credits also include a number of television shows, films and stage productions that span more than 50 years. She received dozens of awards and more than 50 honorary degrees. Angelou is most famous for her seven autobiographies that focus on her early childhood and adult experiences. After working a variety of odd jobs in her youth, she became a poet. This included fry cooks, sex workers, nightclub performer Porgy and Bess cast member, Southern Christian Leadership Conference coordinator, and a correspondent in Egypt and Ghana in the period of decolonization Africa. She was an actress as well as a writer and director, as well as a producer of movies, plays and public TV programs. In 1982, she was named the first Reynolds Professor of American Studies at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. She was a part of the Civil Rights Movement and worked with Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X. In the early 1990s, she made approximately 80 appearances per year in the world of lecture, which she maintained until her 80s. In 1993, Angelou recited her poem "On the Pulse of Morning" (1993) during the first inauguration of Bill Clinton, making her the first poet to make an inaugural speech since Robert Frost at the inauguration of John F. Kennedy in 1961.