Author, Poet, Actress, Activist
Maya Angelou, born Marguerite Annie Johnson in 1928 in St. Louis, was “first” in a number of enterprises:
• First black female cable car conductor in San Francisco
• “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” became the first nonfiction best-seller by an African-American woman
• First African-American woman to have her screenplay, “Georgia, Georgia,” produced
• Has the record for being two years on “The New York Times” paperback nonfiction bestseller list
Maya Angelou’s parents separated when she was three. She and her brother were sent to Stamps, Arkansas to live with her grandmother, and she experienced racial discrimination there. On a visit home, she was raped by