Maya angelou detailed biography of james

Witness Maya Angelou & James Baldwin’s Close Friendship in a TV Interview from

In the mids, Maya Angelou accept­ed a role as a cho­rus mem­ber in an inter­na­tion­al tour­ing pro­duc­tion of the opera, Por­gy and Bess:

I want­ed to trav­el, to try to speak oth­er lan­guages, to see the cities I had read about all my life, but most impor­tant, I want­ed to be with a large, friend­ly group of Black peo­ple who sang so glo­ri­ous­ly and lived with such pas­sion.

On a stopover in Paris, she met James Bald­win, who she remem­bered as “small and hot (with) the move­ments of a dancer.”

The two shared a love of poet­ry and the arts, a deep curios­i­ty about life, and a pas­sion­ate com­mit­ment to Black rights and cul­ture. They forged a con­nec­tion that would last the rest of their lives.

In , when Angelou despaired over the assas­si­na­tion of Mar­tin Luther King Jr., Bald­win did what he could to lift her spir­its, includ­ing escort­ing her to a din­ner par­ty where she cap­ti­vat­ed the oth­er guests with her anec­do­tal sto­ry­telling, paving a path to her cel­e­brat­ed first mem­oir, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.

The book wouldn’t have been writ­ten, how­ev­er, with­out some dis­creet behind-the-scenes med­dling by Bald­win.

Angelou con­sid­ered her­self a poet and a play­wright, and resist­ed repeat­ed attempts by fel­low din­ner par­ty guest, Ran­dom House edi­tor Robert Loomis, to secure her auto­bi­og­ra­phy.

As Angelou lat­er dis­cov­ered, Bald­win coun­seled Loomis that a dif­fer­ent strat­e­gy would pro­duce the desired result. His dear friend might not con­ceive of her­self as a mem­oirist, but would almost assured­ly respond to reverse psy­chol­o­gy, for instance, a state­ment that no auto­bi­og­ra­phy could com­pete as lit­er­a­ture.

As Angelou recalled:

I said, ‘Well, hmmm, maybe I’ll try it.’ The truth is that (Loomis) had talked to James Bald­win, my broth­er friend, and

Maya Angelou

Who Was Maya Angelou?

A multitalented writer and performer, Maya Angelou is best known for her work as an author and poet. Her memoir, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, made literary history as the first nonfiction bestseller by a Black woman. Some of her famous poems include “Phenomenal Woman,” “Still I Rise,” and “On the Pulse of Morning,” which she recited at President Bill Clinton’s inauguration in and which earned her a Grammy Award. Angelou also enjoyed a career as a Tony- and Emmy-nominated actor and singer in plays, musicals, and onscreen. She became the first Black woman to have a screenplay produced with the movie Georgia, Georgia. In her work as a civil rights activist, she collaborated with Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X, among others. The Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient died in May at age

Quick Facts

FULL NAME: Marguerite Ann Johnson
BORN: April 4,
DIED: May 28,
BIRTHPLACE: St. Louis, Missouri
SPOUSES: Tosh Angelos (c. ), Vusumzi Make (c. ), and Paul Du Feu (c. )
CHILD: Guy Johnson
ASTROLOGICAL SIGN: Aries

Early Life

Maya Angelou was born Marguerite Ann Johnson on April 4, , in St. Louis.

She had a difficult childhood. Her parents split up when she was very young, and she and her older brother, Bailey, were sent to live with their paternal grandmother, Anne Henderson, in Stamps, Arkansas. Bailey gave Marguerite the nickname “Maya,” which she would adopt as her preferred name later in life.

As an African American, Angelou experienced firsthand racial prejudices and discrimination in Arkansas. She also suffered violence at home when she was around the age of 7. During a visit with her mother, Maya was raped by her mother’s boyfriend. As vengeance for the sexual assault, her uncles killed the boyfriend.

Young Maya was so traumatized by the experience that she stopped talking. She returned to Arkansas and spent about five years as a virtual mute.

A short-lived high school relationship resulted in Maya b

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    • Without the profound connection between these two artists, would the world ever have gotten I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings?

     Starring: Christina Elmore as Maya Angelou and Larry Powell as James Baldwin. Also starring Angelica Chéri as Lorraine Hansberry.

    Source List:

    James Baldwin: A Biography, By David Adams Leeming

    The Three Mothers, by Anna Malaika Tubbs

    Notes of a Native Son, by James Baldwin

    At 80, Maya Angelou Reflects on a ‘Glorious’ Life, NPR,

    The Collected Autobiographies of Maya Angelou, Compilation copyright by Random House, Inc.

    Conversations With a Native Son

    James Baldwin Biographical Timeline, American Masters, PBS

    Maya Angelou, World History Project

    James Baldwin’s Sexuality: Complex and Influential, NBC News

    “James Baldwin on Langston Hughes”,  The Langston Hughes Review, James Baldwin and Clayton Riley 

    “Talking Back to Maya Angelou”, by Hilton Als, The New Yorker

    “Songbird”, by Hilton Als, The New Yorker

    “A Brother’s Love”, by Maya Angelou

    “James Baldwin Denounced Richard Wright’s ‘Native Son’ as a ‘Protest Novel,’ Was he Right?” by Ayana Mathis and Pankaj Mishra, The New York Times

    “After a 30 Year Absence, the Controversial ‘Porgy and Bess’ is Returning to the Met Opera”, by Brigit Katz, Smithsonian Magazine

    “Published More Than 50 Years Ago, ‘I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings’ Launched a Revolution”, by Veronica Chambers, Smithsonian Magazine

    “On the Horizon: On Catfish Row”, by James Baldwin

    “James Baldwin: Great Writers of the 20th Century” 

    “An Introduction to James Baldwin”, National Museum of African American History & Culture

    “‘The Blacks,’ Landmark Off-Broadway Show, Gets 42nd Anniversary Staging, Jan 31”, by Robert Simonson, Playbill

     “Do the White Thing”, by Brian Logan

    “James Baldwin: The Price of the Ticket”, American Masters, PBS

    “James Baldwin, The Art of Fiction”, by Jordan Elgrably

    “The American Dream and the American Negro”, by James Baldwin

    “The Hi

    Dr. Maya Angelou ( - )

    Celebrating Years of James Baldwin’s Life & Work
    Building on the Classic Film Biography "JAMES BALDWIN:  THE PRICE OF THE TICKET"

     

       

      Scholar / Advisor
      The James Baldwin Project

    • Dr. Maya Angelou is a celebrated poet, memoirist, novelist, educator, dramatist, producer, actress, historian, filmmaker, and civil rights activist.
    • Born on April 4th, , in St. Louis, Missouri, Dr. Angelou was raised in St. Louis and Stamps, Arkansas.  In Stamps, Dr. Angelou experienced the brutality of racial discrimination, but she also absorbed the unshakable faith and values of traditional African-American family, community, and culture.
    • As a teenager, Dr. Angelou’s love for the arts won her a scholarship to study dance and drama at San Francisco’s Labor School.  At 14, she dropped out to become San Francisco’s first African-American female cable car conductor.  She later finished high school, giving birth to her son, Guy, a few weeks after graduation.  As a young single mother, she supported her son by working as a waitress and cook, however her passion for music, dance, performance, and poetry would soon take center stage.
    • In and , Dr. Angelou toured Europe with a production of the opera Porgy and Bess.  She studied modern dance with Martha Graham, danced with Alvin Ailey on television variety shows and, in , recorded her first album, Calypso Lady.  In , she moved to New York, where she joined the Harlem Writers Guild, acted in the historic Off-Broadway production of Jean Genet's The Blacks  and wrote and performed Cabaret for Freedom.
    • In , Dr. Angelou moved to Cairo, Egypt where she served as editor of the English language weekly The Arab Observer.  The next year, she moved to Ghana where she taught at the University of Ghana's School of Music and Drama, worked as feature editor for The African Review  and wrote for The Ghanaian Times.
    • During her years
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