Maya Angelou

Maya Angelou turned personal trauma into universal literature, producing a body of work that has guided, comforted, and challenged readers across generations. Born on April 4, 1928, Angelou grew up in Stamps, Arkansas, and St. Louis, and survived a childhood scarred by poverty and violence — experiences she would later transform with searing honesty in her landmark 1969 memoir I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, the first nonfiction bestseller by a Black woman. The book's candor about race, trauma, and survival made it both celebrated and, in many school districts, banned. Angelou worked as a civil rights organizer alongside both Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X, bringing the same fierce commitment to activism that she brought to her art. Her poetry — including "Phenomenal Woman" and "Still I Rise" — became anthems of resilience, and in 1993 she delivered her poem "On the Pulse of Morning" at President Bill Clinton's inauguration, earning a Grammy Award for the recorded performance. She taught for decades at Wake Forest University and received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2011. Angelou died on May 28, 2014, at age 86.