Maya Angelou ….a Rainbow in Someones’ Cloud

On April 4th 1928  a baby girl was born to Bailey Johnson Sr. and Vivian (Baxter) Johnson, in St. Louis Missouri,her parents gave her the name of Margerite Ann Johnson.  She had an older brother called Bailey Jnr.who gave her the nickname of Maya(meaning my-a-sister).

Maya’s father was a navy dietitian,and her mother was a real estate agent and trained surgical nurse.  Sadly her parents divorced in 1931,and Maya and her brother were sent to live with their grandmother ,who was known as ‘mama’ in Stamps,Arkansas,she experienced the brutality of racism,but there was also the unshakable faith and values of traditional African American family with its community and culture.

During her childhood Maya suffered traumatic incidents,and from about the age of 7-13 she became what was called at the time a ‘volunteer mute’(there was no counselling available,to help her through the awful thing she went through).But  Maya said she absorbed the radio.

As a teenager,Maya won a scholarship to study dance and drama at San Franciscos’ Labor School,she loved the arts.However at the age of 14 Maya left the school,and she became the first African American female cable car conductor.  She did go on to finish her high school education and gave birth to her son,Guy, a couple of weeks after her graduation.

As a young single mother she supported herself and her baby by working as a cook and waitress,but her passion for dance,music performance,and poetry would soon take the spot light.

In 1952 Maya married a Greek sailor called Anastasios Angelopulos,it is about this time that Maya began her career as a night club singer,sadly the marriage did not last.

In the years 1954 and 1955, Maya toured Europe with the production of the opera Porgy and Bess,at this time she also studied modern dance with Martha Graham,and she danced with Alvin Ailey on Television variety shows,and in 1957 she recorded her first album Calypso Lady.

In 1958 Maya Angelou moved to New York,and there she joined the Harlem Writers Guild.  She acted in the historic off-Broadway production of Jean Genets’ The Blacks.  She also wrote and performed Caberet For Freedom.

In 1960 Maya moved to Cairo with her son, where she was the editor of the English language weekly called The Arab Observer.  In 1961 Maya moved to Ghana where she taught at the University of Ghana school of music and drama.She was also the editor of The African Review,and she also wrote for The Ghanaian Times.

Maya continued to study during her years away from the USA,she mastered French,Spanish,Italian and the African language Fanti

She met the Malcolm X while in Ghana.  In 1964 she returned to the USA to help Malcom X build his new organization of African American Unity,tragically he was assasinated and the organization sadly dissolved.

Martin Luther King Jr. asked Maya to serve as a Northern co-ordinator for the Southern Christian leadership conference,  She was devastated by his assassination. With guidance from the novelist James Baldwin,she started to write I know why the caged bird sings, it was published in 1970 to international acclaim..

The 1972 film Georgia Georgia which Maya wrote and composed the music score for, was the first by an African American woman to be filmed,and was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize.

Doctor Maya Angelou has served on two presidential commitees and has been awarded The Presidential Medal of Arts in 2000, The Lincoln Medal in 2008,she has received 3 Grammy awards,and now in her 80s she continues working, and through her writings,she continues to encourage us,to lift us,to inspire us..