| Lauded as a multifaceted superstar, Maya Angeloua tall, gap-toothed, spirited individualist who is often labeled feminist writer, African-American autobiographer, historian, lecturer, journalist, activist, filmmaker, poet, singer, actor, and storytellerfits no single designation. She set out to whip a variety of challenges, including the language barrier, and learned French, Italian, Spanish, Serbo-Croatian, Arabic, and Fanti, a Ghanaian dialect. Her dazzling blend of talents and energies renders her uniquely suited to a variety of self-directed projects, all of which broaden and ennoble her. Her works, translated into ten languages and hitting bestseller lists on two continents, attest to an indomitable spirit. In her words, ''I will not allow anybody to minimize my life, not anybody, not a living soulnobody, no lover, no mother, no son, no boss, no President, nobody." |
| Childhood and Adolescence. As she reveals in I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Maya Angelou [mah' yuh an' jeh loh] was born Marguerite Ann Johnson in St. Louis, Missouri, on April 4, 1928. The second child and first daughter of Bailey Johnson, a brash, insouciant Navy dietician, and Vivian Baxter Johnson, a nurse by profession and gambler by trade, Angelou acquired the first half of her pen name from her brother, Bailey Junior, whose babyish babbling transformed "my sister" into "Maya." Following her parents' divorce in 1931, Maya and Bailey, labeled on their wrists with "To Whom It May Concern," were dispatched by train from Long Beach, California, to Stamps, Arkansas, a rural Southern backwash that contrasted deeply with the citified gaiety of Maya's birthplace. |
| Stamps's nurturing community spirit became Maya's surrogate |
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