Maya Angelou

 Maya Angelou (/’aendZ@loU/(listen) AN–j@-loh) was an American poet, memoirist, and civil rights activist. Her birth name was Marguerite Annie Johnson on April 4 1928. Her most well-known works include her seven autobiographies and three essays. Her credits include a range of television films, shows, and plays that span more than 50 years. Angelou received a variety of honorary degrees, and was awarded more than 50 awards. The autobiographies she wrote about her childhood and early adult time are among her most well-known work. After working a variety of odd jobs during her early years, she was a poet. They included sex worker, fry cook, nightclub performer, and Southern Christian Leadership Conference coordinator. She also was an editor in Egypt and Ghana during the period of decolonization. She was an actress, writer and director and also a director of plays, films and public television shows. In 1982, she was appointed the first Reynolds Professor of American Studies at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. She was a part of the Civil Rights Movement and worked with Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X. She made an average of 80 appearances each year in the world of lecture beginning in the 1990s. It continued to be so until her 80s. Angelou performed her poem "On The Pulse Of Morning" (1993) in the inaugural address of Bill Clinton. This made her the first poet since Robert Frost in 1961 to perform an inaugural recitation.