Natalie Mitchell's presentation on Maya Angelou

1. THE
EXTRAORDINARY
MAYA ANGELOU
NATALIE MITCHELL
PROFESSOR OWENS
ENGLISH 1102

2. MEET MAYA
ANGELOU
Ms. Maya Angelou was born
April 4th, 1928 in St.
Louis, Missouri. She grew up
in St. Louis and
Stamps, Arkansas. Ms. Maya
did suffer from the brutality of
racial discrimination but she
was blessed with a strong
African American family that
gave her indestructible morals
and an everlasting need for
adventure.

3. MAYA FROM
THE
BEGINNING
As a teenager, Maya loved the
arts.
Drama, dance, art, poetry…you
name it, she loved it. She
earned a scholarship to study
dance and drama at San
Francisco’s Labor School. At
age 14, she dropped out and
became the first African
American cable car conductor.
A few years later, she went on
to finish high school. Two
weeks after graduation, she
gave birth to her son, Guy. To
support her son, she worked as
a cook and waitress.

4. ANOTHER
ADVENTURE
FOR MAYA
From 1954-1955 Maya toured
with the Opera production
Porgy and Bess. She adored
the production which led her
to study modern dance with
Martha Graham. She also
danced with Alvin Ailey. Her
experience with drama and
singing inspired her even
further. In 1957, Maya
Angelou produced her first
album, Calypso Lady.

5. Hello New
York
After touring with Porgy
and Bess, Maya moved to
New York and joined the
Writers Guild. During her
stay, she acted in historic
off Broadway production of
Jean Genet’s The Black’s.
She also wrote and
performed Cabaret for
Freedom.

6. THE
ADVENTURE
CONTINUES
In 1960, Maya moved to
Cairo, Egypt. There she filled
the position of an editor for
the English Language
weekly, The Arab Observer.
The following year, she went
even further with her writing
career and moved to Ghana
where she taught at the
University of Ghana’s school
for music and dance. She
worked as an editor for The
African Review and wrote for
the Ghanaian Times.

7. ARTIST AND
ACADEMIC
During the early 1960’s, Ms.
Angelou was still embracing
her life of adventure. With a
passport filled with stamps, and
an already accomplished
history filled with the arts, she
had academic
accomplishments as well. Maya
mastered
French, Spanish, Italian, Arabic
and the West African language
Fanti. During her stay in
Ghana, she met the infamous
Malcom X and decided to
migrate back to the states to
help him build the Organization

8. Politics
and
Writing
After returning to the states, and
the assassination of Malcom
X, she became close with Dr.
Martin Luther King, Jr. He asked
her to serve as the Northern
Coordinator for the Southern
Leadership Conference. His
death in 1968 was incredibly
hard on her. From 1968-1970 her
need to write flared, and with the
help from her friend, famous
novelist James Baldwin, she
ended up publishing I Know Why
The Caged Birds Sing in 1970
which led to outstanding
success.

9. AN
APPRECIATE
D ANGELOU
Maya served on two
presidential committees. She
was awarded the Presidential
Medal of Arts in 2000, the
Lincoln Medal in 2008 and
three Grammy’s. For the
presidential inauguration in
1993, President Clinton asked
Maya Angelou to write a poem
for him to read. Ms. Angelou
has received over 50 honorary
degrees and is currently a
professor of American Studies
at Wake Forest University. At
76 years old, Maya’s life is still
full of wonder.

10. An
Accomplishe
d Woman
From her early years to her
late, Maya Angelou was
completely immersed in
everything life had to offer. She
traveled the world, pursued her
passion for the arts and
ultimately touched the lives of
thousands. Her
poetry, music, political and
academic ventures come to
show that she is a woman worth
respecting and remembering. In
the words of Maya Angelou, “I’ve
learned that people will forget
what you said, people will forget
what you did, but people will
never forget how you made them