Marguerite Annie Johnson was born in 1928 in St. Louis and raised in Stamps, Arkansas, by her grandmother after parental separation. Trauma and selective mutism in childhood preceded her rediscovery of voice through literature. She worked as a dancer, singer, and actress, taking the name Maya Angelou during her performing years, and toured Europe in a production of Porgy and Bess.

Angelou joined the Harlem Writers Guild and worked with Martin Luther King Jr. in the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Her first memoir, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969), described Southern segregation, sexual assault, and personal recovery with unflinching honesty. Six subsequent autobiographies, poetry collections such as And Still I Rise, and essays made her a bestselling author. She composed and recited 'On the Pulse of Morning' at President Bill Clinton's 1993 inauguration.

Teaching at Wake Forest University and receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom capped a career that linked art to activism. Angelou died in 2014 in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, celebrated for transforming private pain into public wisdom.

1. 1928

   Birth in St. Louis

   Marguerite Johnson spent formative years in Arkansas, where she witnessed Jim Crow segregation firsthand.

2. 1959

   Harlem Writers Guild

   Angelou began serious literary work in New York, mentored by figures including James Baldwin and John Killens.

3. 1969

   Caged Bird Published

   The memoir's candid account of racism and survival became a bestseller and National Book Award nominee.

4. 1993

   Clinton Inauguration

   Her televised inaugural poem reached a global audience and renewed public interest in American poetry.

5. 2014

   Death in North Carolina

   Angelou died at eighty-six; tributes emphasized her role as poet, teacher, and witness to twentieth-century Black experience.