Maya Angelou, born April 4th 1928, grew up with a lot of challenges she had to face in life. At a young age, her parents’ marriage was broken and she was forced to live with her grandmother. While living with her grandmother, she was faced with prejudice and racial discrimination. A few years later her father popped up in her life and sent her to live with her mother, where a couple of years went by and she was being abused by her mother’s boyfriend. Maya told her family and that man was put in jail for only one day. He was beaten to death a few days after being released from jail, which caused her to become mute for almost 5 years.
I think that with everything Maya Angelou has been through, so far in her life, if she was not a strong enough person, she probably would have drowned herself in sorrow and punished herself for all that has happened in her life. Instead, she moved back to Stamps, where her grandmother lived, and began to meet with Ms. Bertha Flowers, who was a family friend and teacher. Ms. Flowers helped Maya with literature, art, and managed to help Maya find her voice again.
When Maya hit thirteen years of age, she decided to reunite with her mother in San Francisco. She attended high school and worked very hard. She also received a scholarship to study dance and drama at the California Labor School. Maya had to drop out of high school to become San Francisco’s first female, African-American streetcar conductor. Finally, she returned to school, even though she was pregnant, and still managed to graduate high school. At seventeen, Maya was a single mother, who worked numerous jobs, such as, being a cook, waitressing, and even prostituting, just to be able to support herself and her son.
Once again, I feel that in order to be able to make it through high school while being pregnant, is a very challenging task to complete. Apparently, Maya Angelou was able to accomplish this goal in her life. She was able to focus on school while having a baby inside of her. Not many young girls can focus on finishing school, if they become pregnant at an early age.
Her dream was to become a performer. Maya Angelou moved to Harlem, New York, where she became a successful actress, who often wrote and performed her own work. She also was involved in the Harlem Writers Guild and began working in the Civil Rights Movement. In the early 60s, she began to fight for the civil rights, along with Malcolm X. Soon after his assassination, Maya Angelou began to work with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. A friend and author named James Baldwin, inspired Maya to spill her grief, about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. assassination, on paper. She wrote an autobiography called I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.
Maya Angelou has written over 30 published titles in her name. She’s written poetry, children’s books, essays, autobiographies, as well as, her famous screenplay, Georgia, Georgia. She also has over 30 honorary degrees and has three Grammy awards. Maya Angelou has inspired many people throughout the world, with her words of wisdom and her stories. I believe that whether or not she had mentors or a support system, she would have still been able to follow her life in the path that she took. I feel that as long as you know what you want in life and you stick to your guns, then you can achieve anything you want in life, just like Maya Angelou did.