Maya Angelou

The ancestors remind us, despite the history of pain
We are a going-on people who will rise again.
- Maya Angelou

An accomplished poet, memoirist, playwright, and civil rights activist, Maya Angelou has been widely recognized for her work. She earned the unique distinction of receiving a Pulitzer Prize Nomination, an Emmy Award Nomination, a Grammy, the Mother Teresa Award, and dozens of Honorary Degrees.

After touring Europe with a production of the opera Porgy and Bess in the 1950s, she became increasingly committed to developing as a writer. She joined the Harlem Writers Guild and became associated with the writers of the Civil Rights Movement.

Her writing stood side-by-side with her work on civil rights, which she has dedicated much of her life to protecting -- both through her words and through her actions. She also became the northern coordinator for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in 1959 and worked closely with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who had originally requested she work for the SCLC. She remembers him as a "brilliant" man whose "brain was like sparkles of stardust."

In addition to working for civil rights in the United States, she also acted for civil rights in South Africa. She fought for improved conditions for women living in the Third World, particularly in Africa. In addition, she was a prominent speaker at the Million Man March, where she recited the words that begin this biography.

In 1970, Angelou published her autobiographical novel I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings -- the first in a six-part series which in large part launched her literary career. Hailed by the New York Times as "simultaneously touching and comic," the memoir tells the story of her life as a child and the obstacles she overcame.

Her work served as an extension of her focus on civil rights, as the personal stories touched so many across the world as she took on the topic of racial oppression in America. When she wrote, directed, and starred in Cabaret for Freedom, it was to raise money for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

Since 1982, Angelou served as Reynolds Professor of American Studies at Wake Forest while continuing to write and appear on television and film. Her books, poetry, plays, films, screenplays, albums, and short stories continue to inspire people around the world. Some of her most notable works include "Still I Rise," "A Brave and Startling Truth," Even the Stars Look Lonesome, and The Heart of a Woman.

At Bill Clinton's 1993 inauguration, Angelou delivered an original poem, "On The Pulse of the Morning." It was the second time in history a poet was asked to read at a presidential inauguration. She is a member of The Director's Guild of America, the W.E.B. duBois Foundation, the National Society of Collegiate Scholars, and the Clinton Global Initiative.