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Maya Angelou was born in St. Louis, MO as Marguerite Annie Johnson.
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Maya, at the age of 3, and her brother, at the age of 4, were sent to live with their grandmother in Stamps, Arkansas.
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Maya, at the age of 8, was raped by her mother's boyfriend, Freeman.
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At the age of 14, Maya moved back in with her mother who had moved to Oakland, California.
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Before she graduated, Maya worked as the first black female streetcar conductor in San Francisco.
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At the age of 17, Maya gave birth to her son, Clyde. Clyde later changed his name to Guy Johnson.
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Maya married a Greek electrician, former sailor, and aspiring musician Tosh Angelos.
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Maya and her husband got a divorce in 1954. She then danced professionally around clubs in San Francisco.
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Maya toured Europe with a production of the opera "Porgy and Bess." She attempted to learn the language of each country she visited and eventually gained proficiency in multiple languages
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Angelou recorded her first album, "Miss Calypso."
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Maya met John Oliver Killens. He urged her to move to New York City to focus on her writing career.
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In 1968, Martin Luther King Jr. asked Maya to organize a march.
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I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Maya's first autobiography, was written in 1968 and published later in 1969.
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Maya Angelou was nominated for a Tony Award in 1973 for her role in Look Away.
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Maya Angelou returned to Winston-Salem, North Carolina where she became a full time professor at Wake Forest University. From that point on, she considered herself a teacher who writes.
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Angelou recited her poem "On the Pulse of Morning" at President Bill Clinton's inauguration making her the first poet to make an inaugural recitation since Robert Frost in 1961.
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In 2000, Maya Angelou created a collection of productions for Hallmark, some of which were greeting cards and decorative household items.
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Maya died on May 28, 2014 in Winston-Salem, NC.