World The Life and Times of Maya Angelou

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Maya Angelou’s Obituary

An inspiration to young poets and writers in general, American Author and Poet Maya Angelou is described as charismatic, passionate, warm and wise, a role model and activist who cataloged the Black experience in the United States. Maya Angelou died at 86, a formidable and admirable personality.

There were those who didn’t appreciate her style of ‘prosaic poetry’, and some frowned at the inconsistencies which dotted her accounts of her life. Some conservative Americans were visibly against her open treatment of the violence and sexuality in America.

Inspite of this, only a few can argue with her achievements – she was often called a Renaissance woman.

Born Marguerite Johnson in St. Louis, Missouri on the fourth of April 1928, she was the “daughter of a nurse and nightclub habituee, Vivian Baxter Johnson, and a doorman and navy cook, Bailey Johnson.”

Maya was sent with her brother Bailey Junior to live with their grandmother in Arkansas after her parents got divorced.

Her name, Maya, came from her kid brother’s way of saying “My-a sister.”

Read about the rest of her life here

Source: BBC
 
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