Maya Angelou

 Maya Angelou (/'aendZ@loU/ (listen) AN-j@-loh; born Marguerite Annie Johnson; April 4 1928 - May 28 in 2014) was an American memoirist, popular poet, and activist for civil rights. Her work includes seven autobiographies as well as three volumes of essays. Her writing also contains a range of movies, plays and TV shows which span 50 years. She received dozens of awards and more than 50 honorary degrees. Angelou is most well-known for her series of seven autobiographies, that concentrate on her childhood and early adult experiences. After a string of odd jobs in her early years, she became a poet. They included fry cook, sex worker nightclub performer, Porgy and Bess cast member, Southern Christian Leadership Conference coordinator and correspondent for Egypt and Ghana in the period of decolonization Africa. Also, she was an actress, writer, director, and producer of films, plays, and public television programs. In 1982, she was appointed the first Reynolds Professor of American Studies at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. She was an active participant in the Civil Rights Movement, and she worked with Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. She made an average of 80 appearances every year on the lecture circuit starting in the 1990s. This continued well into her 80s. Angelou performed her poem "On The Pulse Of Morning" (1993) during Bill Clinton's 1993 inauguration.