Adulthood and Career 

In 1952, Maya Angelou married a Greek sailor named Tosh Angelos. Around this same time, Maya’s professional career took off as a nightclub singer, taking on the name Maya Angelou, a combination of her brother’s nickname and her husband’s last name. The marriage, however, did not last, separating just one and a half years after their marriage. Between 1954 and 1955, she toured Europe with a production team of Porgy and Bess, studied modern dance with Martha Graham, danced with Alvin Ailey on television variety shows, and in 1957, she recorded her first album, Calypso Lady.

For many years, Maya developed her skills as a writer, writing several song lyrics and poems. In the late 1950’s, Maya moved to New York to join the Harlem Writers Guild where she met many influential African American writers such as James Baldwin. After hearing civil rights activist Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. speak in the 1960’s, Maya was inspired to become involved in the Civil Rights Movement. She was also involved in several off-Broadway productions, including The Blacks and Cabaret for Freedom.

In 1960, after falling in love with civil rights activist, Vusumzi Make, they, along with her son, moved to Cairo. For the next few years, Maya served in several different jobs including editor of The Arab Observer, instructor at the University of Ghana’s Music and Drama, editor of The African Review, and wrote for The Ghanaian Times and the Ghanaian Broadcasting Company. During her time oversees, she learned to speak fluently in French, Spanish, Italian, Arabic and the West African language, Fanti. 

During her time in Ghana, Maya met with Malcolm X and upon her return to the States in 1964, helped him build a civil rights organization. After both the deaths of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr., Maya wrote her first autobiography, I Know What the Caged Bird Sings, in 1969, a novel that recounts the first seventeen years of her life. Almost overnight, her novel brought her international fame and popular recognition.

In the years following the publishing of her first book, Maya’s work won her an international audience. She was sought after as a teacher, as a lecturer, and in drama, writing her own screenplay, Georgia, Georgia, in 1972. Later in 1973, Maya married Paul du Feu and moved to Sonoma, California. During the late 1970’s, Maya also met Oprah Winfrey, who would later become one of her most treasured friends and mentor. In 1981, Maya divorced de Feu, and returned to southern United States to accept a Reynolds Professorship of American Studies at the Wake Forest University of North Carolina.

In successive years, several presidents have offered her special opportunities, one of which was the opportunity to speak at President Clinton’s first inauguration in 1993 for which she composed and read her poem, “On the Pulse of the Morning”.

In 1993, her poems were featured in television programs and films including Poetic Justice and in 1996, she directed her first feature film, Down in the Delta. To this day, Maya continues her path of inspiration, hosting her own radio show on the Oprah and Friends channel in 2006, and in the 2008 presidential election, placing her support for Barack Obama after Hilary Clinton’s campaign ended. When Obama won the election, taking office as the first African American president, she stated, “"We are growing up beyond the idiocies of racism and sexism". (USA Today).