Presentation Essay About Maya Angelou (1928–2014)

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Maya Angelou
Introduction
Maya Angelou (1928–2014) was an author, poet, and activist. Born Marguerite Johnson, she went on to become a leading female contemporary author and a poet. As informed by Biography.com, she published numerous essay and poetry collections as well as memoirs. One of her popular memoirs is I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, the first nonfiction best-seller authored by a black woman (Biography.com). Her works won her numerous awards signifying her significant contribution to literature.
Maya Angelou (Biography.com)
Places
She was born on April 4, 1928, in St. Louis, Missouri (Biography.com). When her parents split up when she was young, Angelou and her brother had to live with their grandmother in Stamps, Arkansas (Biography.com). She moved to San Francisco during WWII. It was during her time in San Francisco that she became a cable car conductor. She spent most of the decade of the 1960s abroad, in Ghana and Egypt. She died at her home in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
Relationships
While she experienced difficult relationships when she was young, much of her older years were characterized by valuable ones. Angelou’s parents split up when she was still young, and together with her brother, they had to live paternal grandmother. At a tender age of around seven, her mother’s boyfriend raped her. This was followed by her uncles killing the boyfriend.
When Angelou was 16 years old, she gave birth to Guy Johnson after a short relationship led to pregnancy. She married a Greek Sailor, Anastasios Angelopulos in 1952 but they later divorced. It is important to note that this is where she derived her professional name. According to Biography.com, Angelou was very secretive about her marriages, and it is likely she was married more than three times. Biography.com notes that one of the marriages happened in 1973 to Paul du Feu, a carpenter.
Angelou also had close relationships with famous personalities including Martin Luther King Jr. and Oprah Winfrey. Biography.com mentions King as a close friend of hers and his assassination in 1968 affected Angelou significantly. The assassination happened on her birthday, and as a result, she stopped celebrating her birthdays for the years that followed. In addition, for more than thirty years, Angelou sent flowers to King’s widow. Another famous person who was close to Angelou was Oprah Winfrey. According to Biography.com, Winfrey organized numerous birthday celebrations for Angelou. A famous one of such birthdays organized by Winfrey was for her 70th birthday that involved a week-long cruise. As seen, although she had difficult relationships when she was young, much of her later years were filled with important ones.
Oprah Winfrey Presenting American Academy of Achievement’s Golden Plate to Angelou in 1990 (Academy of Achievement, 1990)
Works
In her lifetime, Angelou authored numerous books that made immense contribution to literature. As mentioned earlier, one of her famous memoirs is I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. Published in 1969, the book documents her experiences during childhood and young adult years. Angelou wrote the book after she was encourag...