Maya Angelou was born in St. Louis, Missouri on April 4, 1928 as Marguerite Johnson. She had an older brother named Bailey Jr. whom she loved dearly. Her family moved to California when she was an infant and at the age of three and a half her parents divorced. Maya and her brother were sent to live with their grandmother, Mrs. Annie Henderson, in Stamps, Arkansas.
            
             Five years later at the age of seven and a half, Maya and her brother were sent back to St. Louis, to be with their mother. Tragically her mother's boyfriend raped her. She confided in her brother and unwillingly told him the name of her assailant. Several days later, the man was kicked to death, an apparent victim of the wrath of Maya's uncles. Believing that her words had killed him, Maya stopped talking. She was mute for five years and during this state trained herself to retain and recreate the different influences and events in her early childhood. No one could handle Angelou's state of melancholy and she was send back to Stamps. Her grandmother helped Maya through this difficult time and soon Maya developed into the confident, proud child she once was.
            
             Angelou's first book, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, is an autobiography, which describes this part of her life. During her childhood that Maya realized the immense difficulty of being black in a world dominated by whites. She speaks of the prejudice and humiliation she faced. Through her grandmother's influence, Maya had developed pride in her African American heritage and she gained the courage she needed to face the challenges.
            
             In 1940 she graduated with honors from Lafayette County Training School. Maya and her brother moved to San Francisco to rejoin their mother, who had recently married. Maya felt that life with her mother was constant disorder and ran away to be with her father and his girlfriend in a rundown trailer. Finding this way of life even harder, she began living i...