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born Marguerite Johnson on April 4, in St. Louis, Missouri
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Maya and her brother Bailey sent to stamps, Arkansas, to live with their grandmother, Annie Henderson
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Graduates from Lafayette Training School; she and Bailey move to California to live with their mother
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Maya decides to take a year off from school to work so she worked as a Trolley car conductor on Market Street Railway
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she graduates from high school in San Francisco; her son Clyde (Guy) Johnson is born
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Marries Tosh Angelos, they divorce several years later
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Performs at the Purple Onion in San Francisco; begins to use the name Maya Angelou
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Tours twenty two nations with the touring company of Porgy and Bess till 1955
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Appears in the off-broadway play, Calypso Heat Wave; records Miss Calypso, an album for Liberty Records
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Moves to New York with Guy and Joins the Harlem Writers Guild
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WASHINGTON, DC - FEBRUARY 15: U.S. President Barack Obama (R) kisses poet and author Maya Angelou after giving her the 2010 Medal of Freedom in the East Room of the White House
