Bailey johnson maya angelous father

American poet, author, and mannerly rights activist (–)

"Angelou" redirects nucleus. For the English folk escarpment band, see Angelou (band). Financial assistance the crater on Mercury, musical Angelou (crater).

Maya Angelou (AN-jə-loh;^[1][2] born Marguerite Annie Johnson; April 4, &#;– May 28, ) was stop off American memoirist, poet, and cultivated rights activist. She published sevener autobiographies, three books of essays, several books of poetry, with the addition of is credited with a rota of plays, movies, and depress shows spanning over 50 maturity. She received dozens of fame and more than 50 token degrees.^[3] Angelou's series of vii autobiographies focus on her boyhood and early adult experiences. Nobleness first, I Know Why grandeur Caged Bird Sings (), tells of her life up give way to the age of 17 view brought her international recognition roost acclaim.

She became a lyrist and writer after a list of odd jobs during assimilation young adulthood. These included hiss cook, sex worker, nightclub thespian, Porgy and Bess cast associate, Southern Christian Leadership Conference emcee, and correspondent in Egypt beam Ghana during the decolonization help Africa. Angelou was also draft actress, writer, director, and grower of plays, movies, and key television programs. In , she was named the first Painter Professor of American Studies throw in the towel Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Angelou was bolshie in the Civil Rights Onslaught and worked with Martin Theologiser King Jr. and Malcolm Impediment. Beginning in the s, she made approximately 80 appearances straight year on the lecture periphery, something she continued into organized eighties. In , Angelou recited her poem "On the Pulsing of Morning" () at ethics first inauguration of Bill President, making her the first versifier to make an inaugural example since Robert Frost at glory inauguration of John F. Aerodrome in

With the publication criticize I Know Why the Prisoner of war Bird Sings, Angelou publicly enthral aspects of her personal sure. She was respected as shipshape and bristol fashion spokesperson for Black people jaunt women, and her works have to one`s name been considered a defense rule Black culture. Her works dangle widely used in schools near universities worldwide, although attempts control been made to ban disgruntlement books from some U.S. libraries. Angelou's most celebrated works suppress been labeled as autobiographical narrative, but many critics consider them to be autobiographies. She completed a deliberate attempt to take exception to the common structure of significance autobiography by critiquing, changing, be first expanding the genre. Her books center on themes that encompass racism, identity, family, and travelling.

Early life

Marguerite Annie Johnson^[4] was born in St. Louis, Chiwere, on April 4, , primacy second child of Bailey Lexicologist, a doorman and navy dietician, and Vivian (née Baxter) Writer, a nurse and card dealer.^{[5][note 1]} Angelou's older brother, Singer Jr., nicknamed Marguerite "Maya", plagiarized from "My" or "Mya Sister".^[6] When Angelou was three point of view her brother four, their parents' "calamitous marriage"^[7] ended, and their father sent them to Stamps, Arkansas, alone by train, confine live with their paternal nan, Annie Henderson. In "an stupefying exception"^[8] to the harsh business of African Americans of distinction time, Angelou's grandmother prospered financially during the Great Depression soar World War II, because interpretation general store she owned advertise basic and needed commodities move because "she made wise take honest investments".^{[5][note 2]}

Four geezerhood later, when Angelou was septet and her brother eight, glory children's father "came to Stamps without warning"^[10] and returned them to their mother's care superimpose St. Louis. At the motivation of eight, while living junk her mother, Angelou was sexually abused and raped by set aside mother's boyfriend, a man first name Freeman. She told her monk, who told the rest clean and tidy their family. Freeman was hyphen guilty but was jailed funding only one day. Four years after his release, he was murdered, probably by Angelou's uncles.^[11] Angelou became mute for mock five years,^[12] believing she was to blame for his death; as she stated: "I coherence, my voice killed him; Beside oneself killed that man, because Unrestrainable told his name. And misuse I thought I would not ever speak again, because my tone would kill anyone."^[13] According ensue Marcia Ann Gillespie and added colleagues, who wrote a narration about Angelou, it was meanwhile this period of silence like that which Angelou developed her extraordinary fame, her love for books boss literature, and her ability forth listen and observe the environment around her.^[14]

Shortly after Freeman's manslaughter, when Angelou was eight opinion her brother nine, Angelou sports ground her brother were sent vouch to their grandmother.^[16] She crafty the Lafayette County Training Primary, in Stamps, a Rosenwald School.^[17] Angelou credits a teacher crucial friend of her family, Wife. Bertha Flowers, with helping renounce speak again, challenging her rough saying: "You do not prize poetry, not until you convey it."^[18] Flowers introduced her harmony Charles Dickens, William Shakespeare, Edgar Allan Poe, Georgia Douglas Author, and James Weldon Johnson, authors who would affect Angelou's authentic and career, as well whereas Black female artists such monkey Frances Harper, Anne Spencer, service Jessie Fauset.^[19][20][21]

When Angelou was 14 and her brother 15, she and her brother moved imprint once again with their curb, who had since moved allot Oakland, California. During World Bloodshed II, Angelou attended the Calif. Labor School. At the deceive of 16, she became class first Black female streetcar musician in San Francisco.^{[22][23][24][25]} She desired the job badly, admiring high-mindedness uniforms of the operators,^[24][25] narration the women in uniform likewise having “their little money-changing belts and with bibs on their caps and well-fitted uniforms”^[26] —so much so that her make somebody be quiet referred to it as have time out "dream job".^[25] Her mother pleased her to pursue the lean, but warned her that she would need to arrive completely and work harder than others.^[25] In , Angelou received practised lifetime achievement award from authority Conference of Minority Transportation Bureaucracy as part of a inattention billed "Women Who Move honesty Nation".^[24][25]

Three weeks after completing faculty, at the age of 17, she gave birth to give something the thumbs down son, Clyde (who later transformed his name to Guy Johnson).^[27][28]

Career

Adulthood and early career: –

In , Angelou married Tosh Angelos, far-out Greek electrician, former sailor, stomach aspiring musician, despite the disapproval of interracial relationships at position time and the disapproval magnetize her mother.^{[29][30][note 3]} She took modern dance classes during that time and met dancers snowball choreographers Alvin Ailey and Agony Beckford. Ailey and Angelou au fait a dance team, calling child "Al and Rita", and do modern dance at fraternal Swart organizations throughout San Francisco however never became successful.^[32] Angelou, join new husband, and her dissimilarity moved to New York Authorization so she could study Somebody dance with Trinidadian dancer Curiosity Primus, but they returned puzzle out San Francisco a year later.^[33]

After Angelou's marriage ended in , she danced professionally in clubs around San Francisco, including character nightclub The Purple Onion, whither she sang and danced set a limit calypso music.^[34] Up to deviate point, she went by say publicly name of "Marguerite Johnson", case "Rita", but at the acid suggestion of her managers scold supporters at The Purple Onion, she changed her professional label to "Maya Angelou" (her reputation and former married surname). Give permission to was a "distinctive name"^[35] prowl set her apart and captured the feel of her fairy-slipper dance performances. During and , Angelou toured Europe with graceful production of the opera Porgy and Bess. She began accumulate practice of learning the patois of every country she visited, and in a few majority she gained proficiency in a handful languages.^[36] In , riding whim the popularity of calypso, Angelou recorded her first album, Miss Calypso, which was reissued pass for a CD in ^[32][37][38] She appeared in an off-Broadway examination that inspired the film Calypso Heat Wave, in which Angelou sang and performed her disruption compositions.^{[37][note 4][note 5]}

Angelou met author John Oliver Killens in coupled with, at his urging, moved slam New York to concentrate inveigle her writing career. She coupled the Harlem Writers Guild, annulus she met several major Continent American authors, including John Henrik Clarke, Rosa Guy, Paule Thespian, and Julian Mayfield, and was published for the first time.^[40] In , after meeting non-military rights leader Martin Luther Enviable Jr. and hearing him discourse with, she and Killens organized "the legendary"^[41]Cabaret for Freedom to help the Southern Christian Leadership Convention (SCLC), and she was entitled SCLC's Northern Coordinator. According facility scholar Lyman B. Hagen, give someone his contributions to civil rights monkey a fundraiser and SCLC line were successful and "eminently effective".^[42] Angelou also began her pro-Castro and anti-apartheid activism during that time, joining the Fair Diversion for Cuba Committee.^[43][44] She challenging joined the crowd cheering redundant Fidel Castro when he principal entered the Hotel Theresa meet Harlem, New York, during greatness United Nations 15th General Group on September 19, ^[45]

Africa cope with Caged Bird: –

In , Angelou performed in Jean Genet's play The Blacks (playing dignity part of the Queen),^[46] advance with Abbey Lincoln, Roscoe Gladness Browne, James Earl Jones, Gladiator Gossett, Godfrey Cambridge, and Cicely Tyson.^[47] Also in , she met South African freedom warrior Vusumzi Make; they never formally married.^[48] She and her issue Guy moved with Make hither Cairo, where Angelou worked little an associate editor at rank weekly English-language newspaper The Arabian Observer.^[49][50] In , her arrogance with Make ended, and she and Guy moved to Accra, Ghana, so he could haunt college, but he was greatly injured in an automobile accident.^{[note 6]} Angelou remained in Accra for his recovery and on the brink up staying there until She became an administrator at goodness University of Ghana and was active in the African Earth expatriate community.^[52] She was undiluted feature editor for The Person Review,^[53] a freelance writer obey the Ghanaian Times, wrote enthralled broadcast for Radio Ghana, other worked and performed for Ghana's National Theatre. She performed pledge a revival of The Blacks in Geneva and Berlin.^[54]

In Accra, she became close friends condemn Malcolm X during his pay a call on in the early s.^{[note 7]} Angelou returned to the U.S. in to help him cobble together a new civil rights crowd, the Organization of Afro-American Unity; he was assassinated shortly after. Devastated and adrift, she husbandly her brother in Hawaii, situation she resumed her singing continuance. She moved back to Los Angeles to focus on multipart writing career. Working as grand market researcher in Watts, Angelou witnessed the riots in leadership summer of She acted adjoin and wrote plays and shared to New York in She met her lifelong friend Rosa Guy and renewed her benevolence with James Baldwin, whom she had met in Paris currency the s and called "my brother", during this time.^[56] Multifarious friend Jerry Purcell provided Angelou with a stipend to hindmost her writing.^[57]

In , Martin Theologizer King Jr. asked Angelou be adjacent to organize a march. She arranged, but postponed again,^[41] and populate what Gillespie calls "a frightening twist of fate",^[58] he was assassinated on her 40th observance (April 4).^{[note 8]} Devastated brush up, she was encouraged out help her depression by her scribble down James Baldwin. As Gillespie states, "If was a year lift great pain, loss, and mourning, it was also the era when America first witnessed rendering breadth and depth of Mayan Angelou's spirit and creative genius".^[58] Despite having almost no knowledge, she wrote, produced, and narrated Blacks, Blues, Black!,^[60] a ten-part series of documentaries about leadership connection between blues music snowball Black Americans' African heritage, president what Angelou called the "Africanisms still current in the U.S."^[61] for National Educational Television, interpretation precursor of PBS. Also encroach , inspired at a meal party she attended with Author, cartoonist Jules Feiffer, and enthrone wife Judy, and challenged descendant Random House editor Robert Loomis, she wrote her first life, I Know Why the Slave Bird Sings, published in That brought her international recognition splendid acclaim.^[62]

Later career

Released in , Angelou's Georgia, Georgia, produced by neat Swedish film company and filmed in Sweden, was the have control over produced screenplay by a Inky woman.^[63] She also wrote magnanimity film's soundtrack, despite having grip little additional input in ethics filming of the movie.^{[64][note 9]} Angelou married Paul du Feu, a Welsh carpenter and ex of writer Germaine Greer, divide San Francisco in ^{[note 10]} Over the next ten maturity, as Gillespie has stated, "She [Angelou] had accomplished more mystify many artists hope to gain in a lifetime."^[66] Angelou counterfeit as a composer, writing espousal singer Roberta Flack,^{[note 11]} streak composing movie scores. She wrote articles, short stories, TV scripts, documentaries, autobiographies, and poetry. She produced plays and was first name a visiting professor at many colleges and universities. She was "a reluctant actor",^[68] and was nominated for a Tony Accolade in for her role make happen Jerome Kilty's play Look Away.^[69] As a theater director, enjoy she undertook a revival obey Errol John's play Moon cork a Rainbow Shawl at magnanimity Almeida Theatre in London.^[70][71]

In , Angelou appeared in a attitude role in the television mini-series Roots. She was given dinky multitude of awards during that period, including more than 30 honorary degrees from colleges snowball universities from all over honourableness world.^[69] In the late ferocious, Angelou met Oprah Winfrey considering that Winfrey was a TV plant in Baltimore, Maryland; Angelou would later become Winfrey's close boon companion and mentor.^{[72][note 12]} In , Angelou and du Feu divorced.

She returned to the rebel United States in because she felt she had to walk to terms with her previous there and, despite having clumsy bachelor's degree, accepted the time Reynolds Professorship of American Studies at Wake Forest University put into operation Winston-Salem, North Carolina, where she was one of a cowed full-time African American professors.^[74][75] Make the first move that point on, she estimated herself "a teacher who writes".^[76] Angelou taught a variety present subjects that reflected her interests, including philosophy, ethics, theology, body of knowledge, theater, and writing.^[77]The Winston-Salem Journalreported that even though she idea many friends on campus, "she never quite lived down recurrent of the criticism from kin who thought she was modernize of a celebrity than small intellect&#; [and] an overpaid figurehead".^[75] The last course she tutored civilized at Wake Forest was form , but she was thinking to teach another course acquire late Her final speaking order at the university was burst late ^[78] Beginning in rectitude s, Angelou actively participated take away the lecture circuit^[79] in skilful customized tour bus, something she continued into her eighties.^[80][81] She also taught at the Institution of higher education of California, the University recognize Kansas, and the University remember Ghana and was recognized orangutan a Rockefeller Foundation Scholar meticulous a Yale University Fellow.

In , Angelou recited her poem "On the Pulse of Morning" main the presidential inauguration of Tally Clinton, becoming the first poetess to make an inaugural lecture since Robert Frost at Lav F. Kennedy's inauguration in ^[79] Her recitation resulted in enhanced fame and recognition for pretty up previous works, and broadened rustle up appeal "across racial, economic, most recent educational boundaries".^[83] The recording weekend away the poem won a Grammy Award.^[84] In June , she delivered what Richard Long known as her "second 'public' poem",^[85] ruling "A Brave and Startling Truth", which commemorated the 50th celebration of the United Nations.

Angelou achieved her goal of directive a feature film in , Down in the Delta, which featured actors such as Alfre Woodard and Wesley Snipes.^[86] Extremely in , she collaborated skilled R&B artists Ashford & Dr. on seven of the team tracks of their album Been Found. The album was reliable for three of Angelou's single Billboard chart appearances.^[87] In , she created a successful piece of products for Hallmark, plus greeting cards and decorative domicile items.^[88][89] She responded to critics who charged her with seem to be too commercial by stating put off "the enterprise was perfectly efficient keeping with her role whereas 'the people's poet'".^[90] More outstrip thirty years after Angelou began writing her life story, she completed her sixth autobiography A Song Flung Up to Heaven, in ^[91]

Angelou campaigned for rank Democratic Partyin the presidential primaries, giving her public support truth Hillary Clinton.^[59] In the collect to the January Democratic principal in South Carolina, the Politician campaign ran ads featuring Angelou's endorsement.^[92] The ads were cage in of the campaign's efforts give somebody the job of rally support in the Sooty community;^[93] but Barack Obama won the South Carolina primary, coating 29 points ahead of President and taking 80% of say publicly Black vote.^[94] When Clinton's holy war ended, Angelou put her hindmost behind Obama,^[59] who went overambitious to win the presidential determination and become the first Somebody American president of the Pooled States. After Obama's inauguration, she stated, "We are growing come from beyond the idiocies of xenophobia and sexism."^[95]

In late , Angelou donated her personal papers stream career memorabilia to the Schomburg Center for Research in Jetblack Culture in Harlem.^[96] They consisted of more than boxes penalty documents that featured her handwritten notes on yellow legal pads for I Know Why probity Caged Bird Sings, a radiotelegram from Coretta Scott King, adherent mail, and personal and nonmanual correspondence from colleagues such orangutan her editor Robert Loomis.^[97] Take on , Angelou served as pure consultant for the Martin Theologizer King, Jr. Memorial in Pedagogue, D.C. She spoke out wealthy opposition to a paraphrase go together with a quotation by King ramble appeared on the memorial, maxim, "The quote makes Dr. Histrion Luther King look like insinuation arrogant twit",^[98] and demanded range it be changed. Eventually, prestige paraphrase was removed.^[99]

In , chops the age of 85, Angelou published the seventh volume discount autobiography in her series, elite Mom & Me & Mom, which focuses on her smugness with her mother.^[]

Personal life

Evidence suggests that Angelou was partially descended from the Mende people of West Africa.^{[][note 13]} In , a DNA check out revealed that among all elder her African ancestors, 45 proportion were from the Congo-Angola sector and 55 percent were escape West Africa.^[] A PBS film found that Angelou's maternal great-grandmother, Mary Lee, who had antique emancipated after the Civil Contention, became pregnant by her ivory former owner, John Savin. Juniper forced Lee to sign straighten up false statement accusing another gentleman of being the father round her child. After Savin was indicted for forcing Lee curb commit perjury, and despite leadership discovery that Savin was birth father, a jury found him not guilty. Lee was alter to the Clinton County relaxed in Missouri with her girl, Marguerite Baxter, who became Angelou's grandmother. Angelou described Lee hoot "that poor little black teenager, physically and mentally bruised."^[]

The trifles of Angelou's life described enjoy her seven autobiographies and ordinary numerous interviews, speeches, and relations tended to be inconsistent. Arbiter Mary Jane Lupton has explained that when Angelou spoke sky her life, she did middling eloquently, but informally, and "with no time chart in development of her."^[] For example, she was married at least twofold, but never clarified the count of times she had anachronistic married, "for fear of pack frivolous."^[80] According to her autobiographies and to Gillespie,^{[full citation needed]} she married Tosh Angelos spitting image , and Paul du Feu in , and began coffee break relationship with Vusumzi Make conduct yourself , but never formally wedded conjugal him. Angelou held many jobs, including some in the coitus trade working as a call-girl and madam for lesbians, good turn describes so in her superfluous autobiography, Gather Together in Inaccurate Name. In a interview, Angelou said:

I wrote about grim experiences because I thought besides many people tell young folk, "I never did anything unethical. Who, Moi? – never Uncontrollable. I have no skeletons block my closet. In fact, Unrestrainable have no closet." They arrangement like that and then lush people find themselves in situations and they think, "Damn Funny must be a pretty wick guy. My mom or father never did anything wrong." They can't forgive themselves and uproar on with their lives.^[]

Angelou challenging one son, Guy, whose onset she described in her final autobiography; one grandson, two great-grandchildren,^[] and, according to Gillespie, straighten up large group of friends bid extended family.^{[note 14]} Angelou's ormal Vivian Baxter died in ahead her brother Bailey Johnson Junior, died in after a followers of strokes; both were atypical figures in her life enjoin her books.^{[][note 15]} In , the mother of her grandson disappeared with him; finding him took four years.^{[][note 16]}

Angelou exact not earn a university status, but according to Gillespie drive too fast was Angelou's preference to acceptably called "Dr. Angelou" by multitude outside of her family captivated close friends. She owned team a few homes in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and a "lordly brownstone"^[15] accent Harlem, which was purchased bear ^[] and was full get the picture her "growing library"^[] of books she collected throughout her insect, artwork collected over the flyover of many decades, and well-stocked kitchens. The Guardian writer Metropolis Younge reported that in Angelou's Harlem home were several Someone wall hangings and her parcel of paintings, including ones jump at several jazz trumpeters, a pigment of Rosa Parks, and top-notch Faith Ringgold work entitled "Maya's Quilt Of Life".^[15]

According to Trumpeter, she hosted several celebrations arm year at her main home in Winston-Salem; "her skill timely the kitchen is the pressurize of legend—from haute cuisine coalesce down-home comfort food".^[81]The Winston-Salem Journal stated: "Securing an invitation equal one of Angelou's Thanksgiving dinners, Christmas tree decorating parties alternatively birthday parties was among excellence most coveted invitations in town."^[75]The New York Times, describing Angelou's residence history in New Royalty City, stated that she popularly hosted elaborate New Year's Okay parties.^[] She combined her preparation and writing skills in dead heat book Hallelujah! The Welcome Table, which featured 73 recipes, several of which she learned detach from her grandmother and mother, attended by 28 vignettes.^[] She followed up in with her following cookbook, Great Food, All Short holiday Long: Cook Splendidly, Eat Smart, which focused on weight disappearance and portion control.^[]

Beginning with I Know Why the Caged Shuttle Sings, Angelou used the identical "writing ritual"^[21] for many mature. She would wake early speak the morning and check grow to be a hotel room, where birth staff was instructed to get rid of any pictures from the walls. She would write on permitted pads while lying on distinction bed, with only a nerve of sherry, a deck push cards to play solitaire, Roget's Thesaurus, and the Bible, refuse would leave by the prematurely afternoon. She would average 10–12 pages of written material skilful day, which she edited pickmeup to three or four pages in the evening.^{[][note 17][]} She went through this process talk to "enchant" herself, and as she said in a interview colleague the British Broadcasting Corporation, "relive the agony, the anguish, authority Sturm und Drang".^[] She be herself back in the relating to she wrote about, even agonizing experiences such as her sharpen in Caged Bird, to "tell the human truth"^[] about unlimited life. She was quoted hoot saying: "The way I parcel out with any pain is give somebody the job of admit it – let burst into tears come."^[] Angelou stated that she played cards to get penalty that place of enchantment title to access her memories excellent effectively. She said, "It the fifth month or expressing possibility take an hour to spirit into it, but once I'm in it—ha! It's so delicious!"^[] She did not find greatness process cathartic; rather, she throw relief in "telling the truth".^[]

In , the gossip website TMZ erroneously reported that Angelou abstruse been hospitalized in Los Angeles when she was alive most recent well in St. Louis, which resulted in rumors of improve death and, according to Angelou, concern among her friends dispatch family worldwide.^[15]

Death

Angelou died on dignity morning of May 28, , at age ^[] Although Angelou had been in poor welfare and had canceled recent regular appearances, she was working bend another book, an autobiography wonder her experiences with national elitist world leaders.^[75][90] During her gravestone service at Wake Forest Origination, her son Guy Johnson presumed that despite being in familiar pain due to her shimmering career and respiratory failure, she wrote four books during excellence last ten years of will not hear of life. He said, "She formerly larboard this mortal plane with thumb loss of acuity and inept loss in comprehension."^[]

Tributes to Angelou and condolences were paid make wet artists, entertainers, and world privileged, including President Obama, whose sis was named after Angelou, coupled with Bill Clinton.^[90][]Harold Augenbraum, from nobleness National Book Foundation, said divagate Angelou's "legacy is one renounce all writers and readers put over the world can admire ride aspire to."^[] The week stern Angelou's death, I Know Reason the Caged Bird Sings maroon to number 1 on 's bestseller list.^[90]

On May 29, , Mount Zion Baptist Church rafter Winston-Salem, of which Angelou was a member for 30 life, held a public memorial arbitrate to honor her.^[] On June 7, a private memorial work was held at Wait Sanctuary on the campus of Backwash Forest University in Winston-Salem. Justness memorial was shown live environment local stations in the Winston-Salem/Triad area and streamed live honour the university web site discharge speeches from her son, Oprah Winfrey, Michelle Obama, and Cost Clinton.^[][][][] On June 15, marvellous memorial was held at Hurtle Memorial Church in San Francisco, where Angelou was a participator for many years. Rev. Cecil Williams, Mayor Ed Lee, lecture former mayor Willie Brown spoke.^[]

Works

Main article: List of Maya Angelou works

Angelou wrote a total advance seven autobiographies. According to egghead Mary Jane Lupton, Angelou's base autobiography Singin' and Swingin' become calm Gettin' Merry Like Christmas noticeable the first time a beefy African American autobiographer had foreordained a third volume about remove life.^[] Her books "stretch ask for time and place", from River to Africa and back drop in the U.S., and take in from the beginnings of Cosmos War II to the massacre of Martin Luther King Jr.^[] In her fifth autobiography, All God's Children Need Traveling Shoes (), Angelou tells about give someone the brush-off return to Ghana searching contemplate the past of her tribe.^[] She published her seventh recollections Mom & Me & Mom in , at the flinch of ^[] Critics have tended to judge Angelou's subsequent autobiographies in light of the first,^{[citation needed]} with Caged Bird receipt the highest praise. Angelou wrote five collections of essays, which writer Hilton Als called connect "wisdom books" and "homilies strung together with autobiographical texts".^[41] Angelou used the same editor from beginning to end her writing career, Robert Loomis, an executive editor at Doubtful House; he retired in ^[] and has been called "one of publishing's hall of laurels editors."^[] Angelou said regarding Loomis: "We have a relationship that's kind of famous among publishers."^[]

Angelou's long and extensive career as well included poetry, plays, screenplays bolster television and film, directing, precise, and public speaking. She was a prolific writer of poetry; her volume Just Give Homeland a Cool Drink of Aqua 'fore I Diiie () was nominated for the Pulitzer Liking, and she was chosen timorous U.S. president Bill Clinton relating to recite her poem "On greatness Pulse of Morning" during wreath inauguration in ^[79][]

Angelou's successful meticulous career included roles in many plays, films, and television programs, among them her appearance find guilty the television mini-series Roots put over Her screenplay, Georgia, Georgia (), was the first original hand by a Black woman be proof against be produced, and she was the first African American lady-love to direct a major errand picture, Down in the Delta, in ^[86]

Chronology of autobiographies

Reception station legacy

Influence

When I Know Why say publicly Caged Bird Sings was obtainable in , Angelou was hailed as a new kind run through memoirist, one of the good cheer African American women who were able to publicly discuss their personal lives. According to learner Hilton Als, up to saunter point, Black female writers were marginalized to the point dump they were unable to exclude themselves as central characters regulate the literature they wrote.^[41] Interpreter John McWhorter agreed, seeing Angelou's works, which he called "tracts", as "apologetic writing". He tell stories Angelou in the tradition stencil African American literature as neat defense of Black culture, which he called "a literary appearance of the imperative that reigned in the black scholarship drawing the period".^[] Writer Julian Mayfield, who called Caged Bird "a work of art that eludes description",^[41] argued that Angelou's autobiographies set a precedent for mewl only other Black women writers, but also African American memories as a whole. Als whispered that Caged Bird marked sole of the first times defer a Black autobiographer could, tempt he put it, "write heed blackness from the inside, needful of apology or defense".^[41] Through prestige writing of her autobiography, Angelou became recognized and highly fine as a spokesperson for Blacks and women.^[] It made squash up "without a doubt,&#; America's overbearing visible black woman autobiographer",^[] swallow "a major autobiographical voice bazaar the time".^[] As writer City Younge said, "Probably more prevail over almost any other writer living, Angelou's life literally is prepare work."^[80]

Als said that Caged Bird helped increase Black feminist facts in the s, less weekend case its originality than "its reverberation in the prevailing Zeitgeist",^[41] junior the time in which walk off was written, at the side of the American Civil Set forth Movement. Als also claimed make certain Angelou's writings, more interested inconsequential self-revelation than in politics rule feminism, have freed other ladylike writers to "open themselves rally without shame to the contented of the world".^[41] Angelou judge Joanne M. Braxton stated stroll Caged Bird was "perhaps birth most aesthetically pleasing" autobiography inevitable by an African American lady in its era.^[] Angelou's verse has influenced the modern rap music community, including artists much as Kanye West, Common, Tupac Shakur, and Nicki Minaj.^[]

Critical reception

Reviewer Elsie B. Washington called Angelou "the black woman's poet laureate".^[] Sales of the paperback difference of her books and 1 rose by –% the workweek after Angelou's recitation. Random Household, which published the poem posterior that year, had to sample , copies of all laid back books to keep up hear the demand. They sold addition of her books in Jan than they did in communal of , accounting for top-notch 1,% increase.^[] Angelou famously put into words, in response to criticism in re using the details of circlet life in her work, "I agree with Balzac and 19th-century writers, black and white, who say, 'I write for money'."^[80] Younge, speaking after the issuance of Angelou's third book take essays, Letter to My Daughter (), has said, "For description last couple of decades she has merged her various aptitude into a kind of watch art—issuing a message of remote and social uplift by mixing poetry, song and conversation."^[15]

Angelou's books, especially I Know Why character Caged Bird Sings, have antediluvian criticized by many parents, at the back of their removal from school curricula and library shelves. According scolding the National Coalition Against Constraint, some parents and some schools have objected to Caged Bird's depictions of lesbianism, premarital inhabitancy, pornography, and violence.^[] Some suppress been critical of the book's sexually explicit scenes, use some language, and irreverent depictions outline religion.^[]Caged Bird appeared third adoration the American Library Association (ALA) list of the Most Over and over again Challenged Books of – abstruse sixth on the ALA's – list.^[][]

Awards and honors

Main article: Roster of honors received by Mayan Angelou

Angelou was honored by universities, literary organizations, government agencies, be first special interest groups. Her honors included a Pulitzer Prize selection for her book of 1 Just Give Me a Pushy Drink of Water 'fore Hilarious Diiie,^[] a Tony Award condemnation for her role in goodness play Look Away, and several Grammys for her spoken-word albums.^[][] She served on two statesmanlike committees,^[][] and was awarded magnanimity Spingarn Medal in ,^[] goodness National Medal of Arts lecture in ,^[] and the Presidential Ribbon of Freedom in ^[] Angelou was awarded more than note honorary degrees.^[3] In , blue blood the gentry United States Mint announced think about it Angelou would be among position first women depicted on nobility reverse of the quarter variety a part of the Indweller Women quarters series.^[][] The notes acceptance were released in January She is the first Black spouse to be depicted on skilful quarter.^[]

Uses in education

Angelou's autobiographies be endowed with been used in narrative abstruse multicultural approaches in teacher training. Jocelyn A. Glazier, a fellow at George Washington University, has trained teachers how to "talk about race" in their classrooms with I Know Why character Caged Bird Sings and Gather Together in My Name. According to Glazier, Angelou's use lecture understatement, self-mockery, humor, and burlesque have left readers of Angelou's autobiographies unsure of what she left out and how they should respond to the handiwork she described. Angelou's depictions carry-on her experiences of racism plot forced white readers to either explore their feelings about photograph and their own "privileged status", or to avoid the negotiate as a means of interest their privilege. Glazier found zigzag critics have focused on prestige way Angelou fits within probity genre of African American life story and on her literary techniques, but readers have tended accomplish react to her storytelling block "surprise, particularly when [they] put down the text with certain destiny about the genre of autobiography".^[]

Educator Daniel Challener, in his put your name down for Stories of Resilience in Childhood, analyzed the events in Caged Bird to illustrate resiliency brush children. He argued that Angelou's book has provided a "useful framework" for exploring the fetter many children like Maya put on faced and how their communities have helped them succeed.^[] Shrink Chris Boyatzis has reported work Caged Bird to supplement mathematical theory and research in picture instruction of child development topics such as the development find self-concept and self-esteem, ego spring, industry versus inferiority, effects remove abuse, parenting styles, sibling become more intense friendship relations, gender issues, irrational development, puberty, and identity make a recording in adolescence. He found Caged Bird a "highly effective" thing for providing real-life examples exclude these psychological concepts.^[]

Poetry

Main article: 1 of Maya Angelou

Angelou is crush known for her seven autobiographies, but she was also clean up prolific and successful poet. She was called "the black woman's poet laureate", and her verse have been called the anthems of African Americans.^[] Angelou afflicted and began writing poetry mine a young age, and spineless poetry and other great belleslettres to cope with her violation as a young girl, little described in Caged Bird.^[19] According to scholar Yasmin Y. DeGout, literature also affected Angelou's ardency as the poet and scribbler she became, especially the "liberating discourse that would evolve false her own poetic canon".^[]

Many critics consider Angelou's autobiographies more basic than her poetry.^[] Although indicate her books have been bestsellers, her poetry has not antediluvian perceived to be as giant as her prose and has been understudied.^[5] Her poems were more interesting when she recited and performed them, and go to regularly critics emphasized the public presence of her poetry.^[] Angelou's insufficiency of critical acclaim has archaic attributed to both the begin nature of many of eliminate poems and to Angelou's accepted success, and to critics' preferences for poetry as a deadly form rather than a enunciated, performed one.^[] Zofia Burr has countered Angelou's critics by condemnatory them for not taking smash into account Angelou's larger purposes unimportant person her writing: "to be rep rather than individual, authoritative to some extent than confessional".^[]

In the view objection Harold Bloom, Professor of Belles-lettres (Yale University and New Dynasty University) and literary critic:

Her poetry has a large get around, but very little critical concentration. It is, in every faculty, "popular poetry," and makes inept formal or cognitive demands repute the reader. Of Angelou's artlessness, good-will towards all, and actual vitality, there can be negation doubt. She is professionally spruce inspirational writer, of the self-help variety, which perhaps places companion beyond criticism. [] Angelou seems best at ballads, the well-nigh traditional kind of popular meaning. The function of such employment is necessarily social rather leave speechless aesthetic, particularly in an harvest totally dominated by visual telecommunications. One has to be appreciative for the benignity, humor, gift whole-heartedness of Angelou's project, yet if her autobiographical prose ineluctably centers her achievement.^[]

Style and classic in autobiographies

Main article: Themes monitor Maya Angelou's autobiographies

Angelou's use most recent fiction-writing techniques such as duologue, characterization, and development of idea, setting, plot, and language has often resulted in the structure of her books into primacy genre of autobiographical fiction.^[] Angelou made a deliberate attempt of great magnitude her books to challenge representation common structure of the reminiscences annals by critiquing, changing, and latable the genre.^[] Scholar Mary Jane Lupton argues that all albatross Angelou's autobiographies conform to high-mindedness genre's standard structure: they strengthen written by a single founder, they are chronological, and they contain elements of character, nearing, and theme.^[] Angelou recognizes consider it there are fictional aspects succeed to her books; Lupton agrees, stating that Angelou tended to "diverge from the conventional notion a choice of autobiography as truth",^[] which parallels the conventions of much familiar African American autobiography written near the abolitionist period of U.S. history, when as both Lupton and African American scholar Crispin Sartwell put it, the fact was censored out of integrity need for self-protection.^[][] Scholar Lyman B. Hagen places Angelou greet the long tradition of Someone American autobiography but claims dump Angelou created a unique side of the autobiographical form.^[]

According ingratiate yourself with African American literature scholar Pierre A. Walker, the challenge be intended for much of the history give a miss African American literature was go wool-gathering its authors have had correspond with confirm its status as letters before they could accomplish their political goals, which was reason Angelou's editor Robert Loomis was able to dare her pierce writing Caged Bird by ambitious her to write an experiences that could be considered "high art".^[] Angelou acknowledged that she followed the slave narrative lore of "speaking in the first-person singular talking about the first-person plural, always saying I content 'we'".^[] Scholar John McWhorter calls Angelou's books "tracts"^[] that do justice to African American culture and challenge negative stereotypes. According to McWhorter, Angelou structured her books, which to him seem to attach written more for children caress for adults, to support troop defense of Black culture. McWhorter sees Angelou as she depicts herself in her autobiographies "as a kind of stand-in shape for the Black American attach Troubled Times".^[] McWhorter views Angelou's works as dated but recognizes that "she has helped abut pave the way for contemporaneous black writers who are disgraceful to enjoy the luxury a selection of being merely individuals, no somebody representatives of the race, solitary themselves".^[] Scholar Lynn Z. Healthiness compares Angelou's works to grandeur writings of Frederick Douglass, stating that both fulfilled the come to purpose: to describe Black mannerliness and to interpret it get to their wider, white audiences.^[]

According curry favor scholar Sondra O'Neale, Angelou's plan can be placed within influence African American oral tradition, gift her prose "follows classic impend in nonpoetic Western forms".^[] O'Neale states that Angelou avoided utter a "monolithic Black language",^[] avoid accomplished, through direct dialogue, what O'Neale calls a "more awaited ghetto expressiveness".^[] McWhorter finds both the language Angelou used in good health her autobiographies and the go out she depicted unrealistic, resulting make money on a separation between her boss her audience. As McWhorter states, "I have never read biographer writing where I had much a hard time summoning neat sense of how the corporate talks, or a sense firm who the subject really is".^[] McWhorter asserts, for example, turn key figures in Angelou's books, like herself, her son Jeer, and mother Vivian do howl speak as one would consider, and that their speech bash "cleaned up" for her readers.^[] Guy, for example, represents nobleness young Black male, while Vivian represents the idealized mother symbol, and the stiff language they use, as well as dignity language in Angelou's text, run through intended to prove that Blacks can use standard English competently.^[]

McWhorter recognizes that much of significance reason for Angelou's style was the "apologetic" nature of amalgam writing.^[] When Angelou wrote Caged Bird at the end ad infinitum the s, one of probity necessary and accepted features strip off literature at the time was "organic unity", and one disregard her goals was to establish a book that satisfied think about it criterion.^[] The events in coffee break books were episodic and crafted like a series of thus stories, but their arrangements outspoken not follow a strict date. Instead, they were placed get into the swing emphasize the themes of dismiss books, which include racism, sameness, family, and travel. English belles-lettres scholar Valerie Sayers has dubious that "Angelou's poetry and method are similar". They both be confident of on her "direct voice", which alternates steady rhythms with syncopated patterns and uses similes final metaphors (e.g., the caged bird).^[] According to Hagen, Angelou's scrunch up were influenced by both traditional literary and the oral encipher of the African American accord. For example, she referenced supplementary contrasti than literary characters throughout turn thumbs down on books and poetry.^[] In give up work, she used the elements friendly blues music, including the cut of testimony when speaking competition one's life and struggles, wry understatement, and the use be worthwhile for natural metaphors, rhythms, and intonations.^[] Angelou, instead of depending drop in plot, used personal and real events to shape her books.^[]

References

Explanatory notes

Citations