Mom & Me & Mom

Maya Angelou was born Marguerite Ann Johnson in 1928, in St. Louis, Missouri. Angelou’s childhood years were difficult, as her parents, Vivian Baxter and Bailey Johnson, separated when she was three. She and her older brother, Bailey Jr. (or simply Bailey), who was four at the time, were sent to live with their paternal grandmother, Anne Henderson, and uncle Willie in Stamps, Arkansas. Bailey is the one who nicknamed Angelou “Maya.” Angelou’s grandmother owned a general store in the Black section of Stamps, which was prosperous despite the Great Depression. The family experienced racism by the white community.

During a brief return to her mother, seven-year-old Angelou was sexually assaulted by Vivian’s boyfriend. She confessed the event to her mother, and it eventually became known to the whole family. The man was put on trial and convicted but then released. Soon after, the man was murdered. Traumatized by the experience, Angelou became mute for several years, believing her voice was the cause for the rapist’s death. She continued living with her grandmother in Arkansas, where she attended Lafayette County Training School, taking an interest in poetry and authors like Edgar Allan Poe and William Shakespeare.

As teenagers, Angelou and Bailey were sent to live with their mother in San Franscisco, California. Angelou attended George Washington High School and, during World War II, won a scholarship to study drama and dance at the California Labor School. She dropped out of high school and applied for a job as a cable car conductor. She was initially rejected due to her race, but after being encouraged by her mother, she persisted and was eventually accepted—becoming the first Black woman in the occupation. Angelou returned to school, graduating from Mission High School in 1944, and soon gave birth to her son by Babe—Guy Johnson. She took several jobs to support herself and her son. In 1949, she married Tosh Angelos, a Greek American electrician in the Navy. They divorced in 1954, but Angelou kept a variation of Tosh’s surname throughout her life. She restarted dance classes and danced professionally in several San Francisco clubs. She toured Europe and Africa as a singer and dancer in the opera production of Porgy and Bess.

In the late 1950s, Angelou moved to New York City to pursue a writing career—specifically writing poetry and screenplays. She joined the Harlem Writers Guild, which supported the publication of Black work, and met several Black writers. She also became involved in the Civil Rights Movement and worked as the northern coordinator of Martin Luther King Jr.’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference. In the early 1960s, Angelou met South African freedom fighter Vusumzi Make. They moved to Egypt, where she worked as an editor for the newspaper Arab Observer and explored the Pan-Africanist movement. In 1963, she moved to Ghana with her son and met Malcolm X, with whom she became friends. Angelou returned to the United States to work with him in the Organization of Afro-American Unity shortly before his assassination in 1965.

In response to social events in the United States, and encouraged by African American author and friend James Baldwin, Angelou began working on her first autobiography. In 1969, she published the internationally acclaimed I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, an account of her early life that references her childhood trauma. The novel has been translated into several languages and was nominated for the National Book award. It was also the first best-selling nonfiction work by a Black woman. Angelou went on to publish six autobiographies.

Angelou also published several collections of poetry and essays. Her acclaimed poetry volume Just Give me a Drink of Water ‘fore I Diiie (1971) was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. She continued working for the stage and screen as an actress, producer, film director, and writer. Angelou was widely recognized for her literary contributions and received multiple awards. She was appointed to the Reynolds Professorship of American Studies in Wake Forest University. In 2000, President Clinton awarded her the National Medal of Arts. In 2010, President Obama awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Angelou died in 2014 at her home in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. In May 2021, it was announced that she would be commemorated in quarters from the US Mint.