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Marguerite Ann Johnson, also known as Maya Angelou, was born in Saint Louis, Missouri.
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She gave birth to her first and only child, her son, Clyde who later changed his name to Guy Johnson, when she was 16 years old.
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Maya's passion for music was shown when she recorded an album titled Calypso.
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She moved to New York and joined the Harlem Writers Guild.
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At the request of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Maya Angelou became the northern coordinator for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.
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Martin Luther King Jr. died on her birthday in 1968, and she didn't celebrate her birthday in the years that followed.
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She was nominated for a Tony Award in the category of Best Supporting or Featured Actress (Dramatic) for her role in Look Away.
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At the request of President Clinton, she wrote and presented a poem at his 1993 presidential inauguration.
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She won a Grammy for an audio recording of that poem, "On The Pulse of Morning," in the Best Spoken Word category.
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The Wake Forest School of Medicine created The Maya Angelou Center for Health Equity to study racial and ethnic disparities in health care and health outcomes.
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At age 82, Maya was awarded with the Presidential Medal of Freedom because she is one of the most influential and renowned voices of our time. She was a well rounded renaissance woman as a celebrated poet, memoirist, novelist, educator, dramatist, producer, actress, historian, filmmaker, and civil rights activist.
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Maya Angelou passed away at 86 in her home located in Winston-Salem North Carolina from heart problems.She once said that she wanted the following phrase carved on her tombstone: "I did my best, I hope you do the same."
