The great dancer, playwright, songwriter, poet, author, historian, director, performer, and civil rights activist known as Maya Angelou was born on April 4, 1928 her childbirth name being Marguerite Johnson. Growing up she underwent many hardships, including her parents divorcing and being sent to live with her grandma. Upon turning eight she was sexually assaulted, the man that did this was soon murdered. This being a traumatizing event it silenced her. For four entire years she refused to talk to anyone except her brother, Bailey. After graduation she become a single mother of a son, Guy. Seven years later she married, and adopted the stage name Maya Angelou, Maya is what Bailey called her, and Angelou her new married name. Going through so much at such a young age is unimaginable.
             In 1954, Maya begun touring with a chorus know as Everyman's Opera Company. This interested her in writing lyrics; these lyrics she writes soonturn into poetry and short stories. This is when her career really starts to develop. Next she moves back to Brooklyn, New York, to join the Harlem Writers Guild.
             Maya directs her first play, "Cabaret for Freedom" over these years she struggles with her husband and remarries to Vusumi Make, a freedom fighter of South Africa. The next year her and her son Guy move to Africa where she continues her craft of writing sharing her knowledge in Cairo, Egypt, becoming the editor of the Arab Observer.
             Next she starts educating in a more serious way, in a classroom. Maya serves as assistant administrator at the School of Music and Drama, University of Ghana. Students loved her. She had a natural way of communicating with and teaching these young adults. In 1963 two years later she becomes a feature editor for the African Review; and contributor to the Ghanaian Times and Ghanaian Broadcasting Company.
             1970 is one of her most famous years, she authors "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" a autobiographical no...