Donna Brown Agins - Maya Angelou

A Biography of an Award-Winning Poet and Civil Rights Activist

I speak to the black experience, says author and poet Maya Angelou, but I am always talking about the human condition. From the child raised by her grandmother in a small town in Arkansas to the writer known as a National Treasure, Angelou rose from pain and poverty to achieve success as a dancer, an actress, a teacher, and an award-winning author. Read about why Angelou is one of the best-loved and most fascinating American writers.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Donna Brown Agins writes both fiction and nonfiction. She has long admired Maya Angelou for her integrity, courage and creativity and felt honored to write about her. Agins is the author of several other books, including Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis: Legendary First Lady for Enslow Publishers, Inc.

As an unwed single mother with few job skills and a two-year-old son to support, nineteen-year-old Marguerite Johnson found that interesting jobs that paid well did not exist.

One evening, there was a knock at the door of her home. When she opened it, a short thin man introduced himself to her as R. L. Poole from Chicago. He was looking for someone who knew how to dance, he said. Some friends had given him her name.

Right away she thought that he was a talent scout for a chorus line or maybe a big musical. Poole told Marguerite that he was a dancer from Chicago and that he needed a partner. Marguerite did not know any of the dances he named, but she wanted to show him that she had dancing skill. So she tried to do the splits. It was not impressive: One of her feet hit a gas pipe, the other caught on a table leg. Then, once she had achieved the position, Marguerite was stuck. R. L. Poole had to help her up. Even so, he hired her.

Poole began teaching Marguerite his tap-dance routine at a local rehearsal hall. Day after day, they practiced. Soon they were ready to go onstage.

The night of the first performance, the band played a loud introduction and the audience applauded as Marguerite and Poole pranced onto the stage. Poole immediately began tap-dancing and reached out for Margueritebut she did not move. Marguerite stood rock-still in the middle of the stage.

Poole glided by her and once again held out his hand. Marguerite still did not move. When he tap-danced up to her and hissed, Come on! she stared blankly as if he were a total stranger.

Poole put his arm on her shoulder and gave her a hard push. Finally, Marguerite started dancing. She twirled all around the stage. Her heels slapped the floor as she performed their tap routine along with every dance step she ever knew. R. L. Poole tried his professional best, but he could barely keep up with her. Even when the music stopped, Marguerite continued dancing until her partner put his arms on her shoulders and pulled her off the stage.

After the performance, Marguerite was winded, exhausted, and happy. Until that evenings show, she did not know what she wanted to do with her life. Despite that frightened, frozen time on stage, she now understood that performing would be part of her lifes work.

Several years later, Marguerite Johnson took the professional name Maya Angelou. Over the next forty years, Angelou would travel the world, not only as a dancer but as a singer, civil rights activist, poet, playwright, author, director, and actress. She would be awarded more than fifty honorary doctorate degrees. Her journey would not be an easy one. But she would not give in to failure or despair.

In following her own unique artistic path, Maya Angelou went on to become one of the most respected literary figures in the last half of the twentieth century.

Marguerite Ann Johnson was born on April 4, 1928, in St. Louis, Missouri. Her brother, Bailey, who was a year older, called her Mya sister. His nickname shortened into Mya, though everyone else called her Marguerite. At the time when Marguerite was a little girl, African Americans were treated badly, especially in the Deep South. Black citizens did not have the same rights and privileges as whites. Blacks were not allowed to live in the same neighborhoods as whites, attend the same schools, or even sit near white people on buses and trains.

Hoping to find work, Marguerites parents, Vivian Baxter and Bailey Johnson, Sr., moved the family to Long Beach, California, when the children were small. But by the time Marguerite was three, her parents divorced. Neither parent could care for the children, so three-year-old Marguerite and four-year-old Bailey were sent to stay with their grandmother. The children were placed onboard a train with tags tied to their wrists that read, To Whom It May Concern, along with their names and destination Stamps, Arkansas, care of Annie Henderson. The porter in charge of the childrens cross-country trip left the train in Arizona. With their train tickets pinned to the inside of Baileys coat, the two of them traveled the remainder of the way by themselves.

The children rode in silence until the train left the northern states. When they reached the southern states, other African-American passengers fed them potato salad and cold chicken.

Annie Henderson greeted Marguerite and Bailey when they arrived in Stamps. Like many towns in the South, the small town of Stamps was divided by the railroad tracks into two separate parts: a black section and a white section.

Their grandmother, whom the children called Momma, lived at the back of the William Johnson General Merchandise Store with her son, the childrens uncle Willie. As a baby, Uncle Willie had been dropped by a babysitter. The injury left him physically handicapped.

Over the next few years, Momma created a strict and sheltered environment for Marguerite and Bailey. Their lives revolved around the store, school, and church. Uncle Willy drilled his niece and nephew on multiplication tables and had them recite passages from the Bible.

One afternoon, when Marguerite was tending the pigs near the store, the town sheriff rode up on his horse and told the family that earlier in the day, a black man had messed with a white woman. He did not say exactly what had happened, but in those days a black man in the South could be attacked even for making a random comment to a white woman. The man alerted Marguerites grandmother that the Ku Klux Klan planned to ride though the county that night, putting all black men in danger. He warned her to hide Uncle Willie.

Marguerite, Bailey, and Momma rushed into the store and emptied a bin of potatoes and onions. They helped Uncle Willie struggle into the bin, then covered him with the vegetables. Momma prayed all night long. The Klan did not ride into their yard that night. But Marguerite never forgot the fear and anger she felt over that incident.

The years passed. Marguerite and Bailey did not hear from either of their parents. During these years, Marguerite grew even closer to Bailey, whom she looked up to not only as a brother, but also as a companion and a protector. Marguerite believed that Bailey was as handsome as she was homely. She thought she looked tall and gangly while Bailey was small and graceful.

When relatives or friends said unkind things about Marguerites looks, Bailey stood up for her. Marguerite and her brother enjoyed each others company so much, they spent most of their time together.