Forums » Pearl's Cafe
Chronicles of Greatness (24b) Maya Angelou
-
MAYA ANGELOU (1928 – 2014)
“If you have only one smile in you, give it to the people you love. Don't be surly at home, then go out in the street and start grinning Good morning at total strangers.”
-
Maya Angelou
In the mid-1950s, Maya got a role in a touring production of Porgy and Bess, she later appeared in the off-Broadway production Calypso Heat Wave (1957) and released her first album, Miss Calypso (1957).
As a member of the Harlem Writers Guild and a civil rights activist, Angelou organized and starred in the musical revue Cabaret for Freedom as a benefit for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, she also served as the SCLC's northern coordinator.
In the 1960s, she travelled abroad. She lived in Egypt and Ghana, where she worked as an editor and a freelance writer. Angelou also held a position at the University of Ghana for a time.
In 1961, Angelou appeared in an off-Broadway production of Jean Genet's The Blacks with James Earl Jones, Lou Gossett Jr. and Cicely Tyson. When she returned to the United States, Angelou was urged by friend and fellow writer James Baldwin to write about her life experiences. Adherence to this resulted in the enormously successful 1969 memoir about her childhood and young adult years, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, which made literary history as the first nonfiction best-seller by an African-American woman. This poignant work also made Angelou an international star.
This book was the starting point for Angelou. She did not stop at publishing her first book, she continued to break new ground—not just artistically, but educationally and socially.
She wrote Georgia, a drama in 1972. This made her the first African-American woman to have her screenplay produced. She also earned a Tony Award nomination for her role in the play Look Away (1973) and an Emmy Award nomination for her work on the television miniseries Roots (1977) among other honors.
...To be continued.
Maya Angelou. (2015). The Biography.com website. Retrieved 01:07, Jul 29, 2015, from http://www.biography.com/people/maya-angelou-9185388 style="color: #000000;">.
Copyright © 2015 [Adebola A. Ayoade]. All Rights Reserved.
Kindly like us on facebook - https://www.facebook.com/debypearl?ref=hl
And follow us on twitter - @PearlsCafe1
Thank you!
-