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Celebrating and honoring the life and accomplishments of Dr. Maya Angelou. A treasurer of American Culture, Dr. Angelou was world renowned for her work as an actress, singer, dancer, film director, essayist, inaugural poet, and Pulitzer-Prize nominated poet. The author of more than 35 books, a dozen volumes of poetry and countless essays, Dr. Angelou passed away on Wednesday, May 28th at her home in Winston-Salem, North Carolina where she had a lifetime appointment at Wake Forest University. Dr. Angelou is survived by her son, Guy B. Johnson along with her two grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
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WHEREAS, Born Marguerite Annie Johnson on April 4, 1928 in St. Louis, Dr. Angelou moved to Stamps, Arkansas at the age of 3, a town so segregated that Dr. Angelou once remarked, "most black children didn't really, absolutely know what whites looked like"; and
WHEREAS, Sexually assaulted by her mother's boyfriend at the age of 8, Dr. Angelou remained mute for the next five years. Only after meeting a local women named Bertha Flowers did Dr. Angelou emerge from her shell, and begin devouring poems by authors such as William Shakespeare, Langston Hughes, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and Paul Laurence Dunbar; and
WHEREAS, Giving birth to her son Clyde Bailey Johnson at the age of 16, Dr. Angelou often worked odd jobs to make ends meet including a shake dancer in nightclubs, a fry cook in a hamburger restaurant, dinner cook in a Creole restaurant, and a job in a mechanic's shop where she stripped paint off cars by hand; and
WHEREAS, In the late 1950s, Dr. Angelou moved to New York and joined the Harlem Writers Guild where she had the opportunity to work and collaborate with the novelist-playwright James Baldwin; and
WHEREAS, In the 1960s, Dr. Angelou joined the civil rights movement helping co-produce a benefit cabaret for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, a group co-founded by the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King. Dr. Angelou...
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