-
She was born Marguerite Annie Johnson on April 4, 1928, in
St. Louis, Missouri. -
She dropped out of school and became San Francisco's first African American cable car operator.
-
Angelou formed a dance team, calling themselves "Al and Rita", and performed dance at Black organizations throughout San Francisco but never became successful
-
She began her career as a singer and took on the name Maya Angelou.
-
She released her first album called Miss Calypso
-
She became the northern coordinator for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference at the request of MLK
-
Worked as editor of English language weekly The Arab Observer
-
Taught at the University of Ghana's music school
-
Her most famous novel is published
-
She writes the screenplay for Georgia, Georgia. It is nominated for a Pulitzer prize.
-
Received the Ladies' Home Journal Award
-
She recited her poem "On the Pulse of the Morning" at the inauguration of Clinton, she later received a Grammy for it.
-
She directed her first feature film "Down in the Delta"
-
She became a talk show host on the Sirius XM channel Oprah and Friends
-
She dies in her home in Winston-Salem, NC. She had been getting frail according to her literary agent.