It’s only fitting that the first week of U.S. National Poetry Month in April coincides with what would have been the 90th birthday of the poet Maya Angelou, who died May 28, 2014, at the age of 86. And Google is celebrating Angelou’s birthday with a Doodle.
But while Maya Angelou best known today for her writing — as the author of more than 30 books and the recipient of more than 50 honorary degrees — she had many different careers before becoming a writer, and all before the age of 40, as TIME pointed out in her 2014 obituary. Angelou’s jobs included: cook, waitress, sex-worker, dancer, actor, playwright, editor at an English-language newspaper in Egypt, Calypso singer, and cast member of the opera Porgy and Bess. In fact, Angelou’s name is more of a stage name than a pen name; Angelou was born Marguerite Annie Johnson in St. Louis in 1928, but in the 1950s came up with “Maya Angelou,” which is a portmanteau of sorts, by combining her childhood nickname and a riff on her then-husband’s surname.
In a Google Doodle marking her April 4 birthday, Angelou can be heard reading “Still I Rise,” alongside testimonials from her son Guy Johnson, Oprah Winfrey, Laverne Cox, Alicia Keys, America Ferrera, and Martina McBride. The 15-time Grammy-winner Keys calls Angelou a “renaissance woman,” while 14-time Grammy nominee McBride says Angelou inspired her to write her own songs. Winfrey, who has called Angelou a mentor, says that “Maya Angelou is not what she has done or written or spoken, it’s how she did it all. She moved through the world with unshakeable calm, confidence, and a fiery, fierce grace and abounding love.”
Here are five things to know about literary legend Maya Angelou:
Maya Angelou reads poetry to Tufts University students at the Somerville Theatre in Somerville, Mass. on April 28, 1997. John Bohn/The Boston Globe—Getty Images
1. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings was Maya Angelou’s first book
As the world marks her birthday in 2018, Maya Angelou’s breakout work is particularly relevant to the national conversation. Long before the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements brought sexual assault into the national conversation, she wrote in her 1969 memoir about her own experience with sexual trauma, and how her mother’s boyfriend raped her when she was a child. He was convicted and imprisoned, and after his release he was beaten to death, a series of events that led her to stop talking for a period.
“I thought I had caused his death because I told his name to the family…” she wrote in a 2013 op-ed in The Guardian. “I decided that my voice was so powerful that it could kill people.”
In an interview with Winfrey, Angelou said that, while some places banned the book because of the rape scene, she also believed the book had saved lives by providing a model of endurance. “I just read someplace that after a woman had read Caged Bird, she realized she wasn’t alone,” she told the media mogul. As she once said in another interview, “the encountering may be the very experience which creates the vitality and the power to endure.”
American poet Maya Angelou reciting her poem 'On the Pulse of Morning' at the inauguration of President Bill Clinton in Washington DC, 20th January 1993. (Photo by Consolidated News Pictures/Hulton Archive/Getty Images) (Consolidated News Pictures; Getty Images)
2. Maya Angelou was San Francisco’s first female African-American cable car conductor
“I loved the uniforms,” she once said to Oprah Winfrey, explaining why she wanted this particular job as a 16-year-old. Per her mother’s advice, she went to the city office that hired cable car conductors and sat there reading Russian literature until they agreed to hire her. Her mother got up with her at 4:00 a.m. for her daybreak shifts and trailed her in her car “with her pistol on the passenger seat” to keep an eye on her.
Maya Angelou during an interview in Washington, D.C. on June 3, 1974. Craig Herndon—Getty Images
3. Maya Angelou was also one of the first African-American female members in the Directors Guild of America
She first joined in 1975, shortly after writing the 1972 film Georgia, Georgia about an interracial romance, but made her official directorial debut at 70 with Down in the Delta (1998). The movie is about a mother who sends her children away from Chicago to live with family in rural Mississippi so that they could learn about their roots.
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Poet and novelist Maya Angelou at a Sickle Cell Disease Association of America program in Mobile, Ala. on Sept 12, 2006. John David Mercer—AP
4. Angelou’s “On the Pulse of Morning” was only the second poem written for a Presidential Inauguration
Bill Clinton tapped her to be the second poet ever to read an original work at a Presidential Inauguration, following in the footsteps of Robert Frost, who recited “The Gift Outright” at John F. Kennedy’s inauguration.
She grew up in Stamps, Ark., about 30 minutes south of Clinton’s birthplace in Hope, and her work reminded the Democratic President of the grocery store that his grandfather managed in a predominantly African-American neighborhood. “When I read I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, I knew exactly who she was talking about and what she was talking about in that book,” he has said.
Maya Angelou gestures while speaking during an interview at her home on April 8, 1978. Jack Sotomayor—Getty Images
5. Angelou won three Grammy Awards—and more
She boasts three Grammy wins (and five nominations) for best spoken word albums — in 1993, 1995 and 2002, for On The Pulse Of Morning, Phenomenal Woman, and A Song Flung Up To Heaven, respectively. But her awards don’t stop there. For example, she was nominated for a 1973 Tony Award for best Supporting or Featured Actress (Dramatic) for her role in Jerome Kilty’s 1972 play Look Away.
Considering her complicated life, it’s perhaps no surprise that Angelou wrote seven autobiographies, the last one being released just about a year before her death. As Angelou told TIME then, writing — though a career arrived at late in life — was what she did.
“I’ll probably be writing,” she said, “when the Lord says, ‘Maya, Maya Angelou, it’s time.'”
Dr Maya Angelou (1928-2014) lived an extraordinary life and is remembered today on what would have been her 90th birthday.
Google's latest Doodle pays tribute to one of the foremost African-American creative voices of the 20th century on a poignant date, for 4 April 2018 also marks 50 years since civil rights leader Dr Martin Luther King Jr was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee.
Angelou knew Dr King and helped organise the Cabaret For Freedom concert in 1960 to raise funds for his Southern Christian Leadership Conference. She was a major figure in the movement in her own right as well as a champion of women's rights and gender equality.
Google Doodles
91 show all Google Doodles
1/91 Maya Angelou Google Doodle celebrating Maya Angelou Google
2/91 John Harrison Google Doodle celebrating John Harrison Google
3/91 Hannah Glasse Google Doodle celebrating Hannah Glasse Google
4/91 Katsuko Saruhashi Google Doodle celebrating Katsuko Saruhashi Google
5/91 Guillermo Haro Google Doodle celebrating Guillermo Haro Google
6/91 Sir William Henry Perkin Google Doodle celebrating Sir William Henry Perkin Google
7/91 Gabriel Garcia Marquez Google Doodle celebrating Gabriel Garcia Marquez Google
8/91 Holi Google Doodle celebrating Holi Google
9/91 St. David's Day Google Doodle celebrating St. David's Day Google
10/91 Carter G Woodson Google Doodle celebrating Carter G Woodson Google
11/91 Wilder Penfield Google Doodle celebrating Wilder Penfield Google
12/91 Virginia Woolf Google Doodle celebrating Virginia Woolf Google
13/91 Sergei Eisenstein Google Doodle celebrating Sergei Eisenstein Google
14/91 Winter Solstice Google Doodle celebrating Winter Solstice Google
15/91 St Andrew's Day Google Doodle celebrating St Andrew's Day Google
16/91 Gertrude Jekyll Google Doodle celebrating Gertrude Jekyll Google
17/91 Children's Day 2017 Google Doodle celebrating Children's Day 2017 Google
18/91 Cornelia Sorabji Google Doodle celebrating Cornelia Sorabji Google
19/91 Pad Thai Google Doodle celebrating Pad Thai Google
20/91 Jackie Forster Google Doodle celebrating Jackie Forster Google
21/91 Halloween 2017 Google Doodle celebrating Halloween 2017 Google
22/91 Studio for Electronic Music Google Doodle celebrating the Studio for Electronic Music Google
23/91 Selena Quintanilla Google Doodle celebrating Selena Quintanilla Google
24/91 Olaudah Equiano Google Doodle celebrating Olaudah Equiano Google
25/91 Fridtjof Nansen Google Doodle celebrating Fridtjof Nansen Google
26/91 Amalia Hernandez Google Doodle celebrating Amalia Hernandez Google
27/91 Dr Samuel Johnson Google Doodle celebrating Dr Samuel Johnson Google
28/91 Sir John Cornforth Google Doodle celebrating Sir John Cornforth Google
29/91 British Sign Language Google Doodle celebrating British Sign Language Google
30/91 Eduard Khil Google Doodle celebrating Eduard Khil Google
31/91 James Wong Howe Google Doodle celebrating James Wong Howe Google
32/91 Eiko Ishioka Google Doodle celebrating Eiko Ishioka Google
33/91 Eva Ekeblad Google Doodle celebrating Eva Ekeblad Google
34/91 Fourth of July Google Doodle celebrating Fourth of July Google
35/91 Wimbledon Championship Google Doodle celebrating Wimbledon Google
36/91 Victor Hugo Google Doodle celebrating Victor Hugo Google
37/91 Google Doodle celebrating Oskar Fischinger Google Doodle celebrating Oskar Fischinger Google
38/91 UK General Election 2017 Google celebrates the UK General Election Google
39/91 Zaha Hadid Google celebrates the acclaimed architect for becoming the first woman to win the Pritzker Architecture Prize on this day in 2004 Google
40/91 Richard Oakes Google Doodle celebrating Richard Oakes' 75 birthday Google
41/91 Google Doodle celebrating the Antikythera Mechanism Google Doodle celebrating the Antikythera Mechanism Google
42/91 Ferdinand Monoyer The famous French ophthalmologist, who invented the eye test, would have celebrated his 181st birthday today Google
43/91 Google Doodle celebrating Giro d'Italia's 100th Anniversary Google Doodle celebrating Giro d'Italia's 100th Anniversary Google
44/91 Google Doodle celebrating Nasa's Cassini probe Google Doodle celebrating Nasa's Cassini probe Google
45/91 Google Doodle celebrating Fazlur Rahman Khan Google Doodle celebrating Fazlur Rahman Khan Google
46/91 Google Doodle celebrating Sergei Diaghilev Google Doodle celebrating Sergei Diaghilev Google
47/91 Google Doodle celebrating St. Patrick's Day Google Doodle celebrating St. Patrick's Day Google
48/91 Google Doodle celebrating Holi Festival Google Doodle celebrating Holi Festival Google
49/91 Google Doodle celebrating St. David's Day Google Doodle celebrating St. David's Day Google
50/91 Abdul Sattar Edhi Google Doodle of Abdul Sattar Edhi on February 28 2017 Google
51/91 Seven earth-sized exoplanets discovered Google Doodle celebrates Nasa's discovery of seven earth-sized exoplanets in new solar system Google
52/91 Bessie Coleman Google Doodle honours the first African American woman to get an international pilot licence on her 125th birthday Google
53/91 Caroling Google Doodle celebrates Christmas caroling Google
54/91 Today's Google Doodle features activist Steve Biko Google
55/91 Walter Cronkite Google celebrates Walter Cronkite's 100th birthday
56/91 Ladislao José Biro Google celebrates Ladislao José Biro 117th birthday
57/91 Google Google celebrates its 18th birthday
58/91 The history of tea in Britain Google celebrates the 385th anniversary of tea in the UK
59/91 Autumnal equinox 2016 Google marks the start of fall
60/91 Paralympics 2016 Google marks the start of the Paralympic Games 2016
61/91 Nettie Stevens Google celebrates Nettie Stevens 155th birthday
62/91 Father's Day 2016 Google celebrates Father's Day
63/91 Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Google celebrates Elizabeth Garrett Anderson 180th birthday
64/91 Earth Day 2016 Google celebrates Earth Day
65/91 Ravi Shankar Google marks Pandit Ravi Shankar's 96th birthday
66/91 Olympic Games in 1896 Google are celebrates the 120th anniversary of the modern Olympic Games in 1896
67/91 World Twenty20 final Google celebrates the 2016 World Twenty20 cricket final between the West Indies and England with a doodle Google
68/91 William Morris Google celebrates William Morris' 182 birthday with a doodle showcasing his most famous designs Google
69/91 St Patrick's Day 2016 Googlle celebrates St Patrick's Day on 17 March
70/91 Caroline Herschel Google marks Caroline Herschel's 266th birthday Google
71/91 Clara Rockmore Google celebrates Clara Rockmore's 105th birthday
72/91 International Women's Day 2016 #OneDayIWill video marks International Woman's Day on 8 March
73/91 St David's Day 2016 Google marks St David's Day Google
74/91 Leap Year 2016 Google celebrates Leap Day on 28 February 2 Google
75/91 Lantern Festival 2016 Google celebrates the last day of the Chinese New Year celebrations with a doodle of the Lantern Festival Google
76/91 Stethoscope Inventor, René Laennec Google celebrate's René Laennec's 235th birthday
77/91 Valentine's Day 2016 Google celebrates Valentine's Day with a romantic Doodle
78/91 Dmitri Mendeleev Google celebrate Dmitri Mendeleev's 182nd birthday
79/91 "The televisor" demonstartion Google Doodle celebrates 90 years since the first demonstration of television or "the televisor" to the public
80/91 Professor Scoville Google marks Professor Scoville’s 151st birthday
81/91 Sophie Taeuber-Arp Google marks Sophie Taeuber-Arp's 127th birthday
82/91 Charles Perrault Google celebrates author Charles Perrault's 388th birthday
83/91 Mountain of Butterflies discovery Google celebrates the 41st anniversary of the discovery of the Mountain of Butterflies
84/91 Winter Solstice 2015 Google celebrate the Winter Solstice
85/91 St Andrew's Day 2015 Google marks St Andrew's Day with doodle featuring Scotland's flag and Loch Ness monster
86/91 41st anniversary of the discovery of 'Lucy' Google marks the 41st anniversary of the discovery of 'Lucy', the name given to a collection of fossilised bones that once made up the skeleton of a hominid from the Australopithecus afarensis species, who lived in Ethiopia 3.2 million years ago
87/91 George Boole Google marks George Boole's 200th birthday
88/91 Halloween 2015 Google celebrates Halloween using an interactive doodle game "Global Candy Cup"
89/91 Prague Astronomical Clock Google celebrates the 605th anniversary of the Prague Astronomical Clock, one of the oldest functioning timepieces in the world
90/91 Autumnal Equinox 2015 Google marks the autumnal equinox on 23 September
91/91 International Women's Day 2018 Google marks IWD with a doodle featuring a dozen female artists from 12 different countries
She is best remembered, however, for her autobiographical novel I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings, published in 1969, a year after Dr King's tragic murder.
Angelou's life was packed with incident.
Born Marguerite Annie Johnson in St Louis, Missouri, she was rendered mute for seven years after being sexually assaulted as a child by her mother's boyfriend, devoting herself to reading and falling in love with literature after it gave her the courage to rediscover her voice and overcome the trauma.
As a young woman she was a mother, a fry cook, a prostitute, a brothel madam, San Francisco's first black female streetcar conductor, a nightclub calypso dancer and toured Europe in George Gershwin's opera Porgy & Bess.
She lived in Ghana, befriended Billie Holiday, Malcolm X and James Baldwin, directed a feature film and was the first poet since Robert Frost in 1961 to recite at a US presidential inauguration when she read her verse "On the Pulse of Morning" as Bill Clinton was sworn in at the White House in 1992.
Oprah Winfrey, Michelle Obama and Clinton all spoke at her memorial after she passed away in 2014.
Maya Angelou: In her own words
6 show all Maya Angelou: In her own words
1/6 'There’s a world of difference between truth and facts. Facts can obscure the truth' Maya Angelou with her book, 'I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings', in 1971 AP
2/6 'Segregation shaped me, and education liberated me' Maya Angelou in Washington in 1992 AP
3/6 'Prejudice is a burden that confuses the past, threatens the future and renders the present inaccessible' Maya Angelou delivers a speech in 1995 EPA
4/6 'Good done anywhere is good done everywhere' Maya Angelou smiles during an interview in 2005 AP
5/6 'At 15 life had taught me undeniably that surrender, in its place, was as honourable as resistance, especially if one had no choice' Maya Angelou speaks during the 9th Annual Maya Angelou Women Who Lead Luncheon in 2011 AP
6/6 'Until blacks and whites see each other as brother and sister, we will not have parity. It’s very clear' Maya Angelou with President Barack Obama in 2011 AP
"I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did but people will never forget how you made them feel," the lady herself once observed.
In that spirit, her ode to inner strength and defiance "Still I Rise" from 1978 remains one of her most popular and enduring works and provides a fitting epitaph.
Still I Rise
You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I’ll rise.
Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
‘Cause I walk like I’ve got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.
Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I’ll rise.
Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops,
Weakened by my soulful cries?
Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don’t you take it awful hard
‘Cause I laugh like I’ve got gold mines
Diggin’ in my own backyard.
You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I’ll rise.
Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I’ve got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?
Out of the huts of history’s shame
I rise
Up from a past that’s rooted in pain
I rise
I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.
Maya Angelou, who would have been 90 on 4 April, remains one of America’s most influential writers, artists and cultural figureheads.
Her series of seven autobiographical works, beginning with the seminal coming of age story, I Know Why the Cage Bird Sings, overhauled the memoir genre, tackling rape, racism and trauma and catapulted Angelou to international acclaim.
Her birthday is the same date as the assassination of her friend and colleague in the US civil rights movement, Dr Martin Luther King Jr, whom she met in 1960 after hearing him speak.
Google Doodles
91 show all Google Doodles
1/91 Maya Angelou Google Doodle celebrating Maya Angelou Google
2/91 John Harrison Google Doodle celebrating John Harrison Google
3/91 Hannah Glasse Google Doodle celebrating Hannah Glasse Google
4/91 Katsuko Saruhashi Google Doodle celebrating Katsuko Saruhashi Google
5/91 Guillermo Haro Google Doodle celebrating Guillermo Haro Google
6/91 Sir William Henry Perkin Google Doodle celebrating Sir William Henry Perkin Google
7/91 Gabriel Garcia Marquez Google Doodle celebrating Gabriel Garcia Marquez Google
8/91 Holi Google Doodle celebrating Holi Google
9/91 St. David's Day Google Doodle celebrating St. David's Day Google
10/91 Carter G Woodson Google Doodle celebrating Carter G Woodson Google
11/91 Wilder Penfield Google Doodle celebrating Wilder Penfield Google
12/91 Virginia Woolf Google Doodle celebrating Virginia Woolf Google
13/91 Sergei Eisenstein Google Doodle celebrating Sergei Eisenstein Google
14/91 Winter Solstice Google Doodle celebrating Winter Solstice Google
15/91 St Andrew's Day Google Doodle celebrating St Andrew's Day Google
16/91 Gertrude Jekyll Google Doodle celebrating Gertrude Jekyll Google
17/91 Children's Day 2017 Google Doodle celebrating Children's Day 2017 Google
18/91 Cornelia Sorabji Google Doodle celebrating Cornelia Sorabji Google
19/91 Pad Thai Google Doodle celebrating Pad Thai Google
20/91 Jackie Forster Google Doodle celebrating Jackie Forster Google
21/91 Halloween 2017 Google Doodle celebrating Halloween 2017 Google
22/91 Studio for Electronic Music Google Doodle celebrating the Studio for Electronic Music Google
23/91 Selena Quintanilla Google Doodle celebrating Selena Quintanilla Google
24/91 Olaudah Equiano Google Doodle celebrating Olaudah Equiano Google
25/91 Fridtjof Nansen Google Doodle celebrating Fridtjof Nansen Google
26/91 Amalia Hernandez Google Doodle celebrating Amalia Hernandez Google
27/91 Dr Samuel Johnson Google Doodle celebrating Dr Samuel Johnson Google
28/91 Sir John Cornforth Google Doodle celebrating Sir John Cornforth Google
29/91 British Sign Language Google Doodle celebrating British Sign Language Google
30/91 Eduard Khil Google Doodle celebrating Eduard Khil Google
31/91 James Wong Howe Google Doodle celebrating James Wong Howe Google
32/91 Eiko Ishioka Google Doodle celebrating Eiko Ishioka Google
33/91 Eva Ekeblad Google Doodle celebrating Eva Ekeblad Google
34/91 Fourth of July Google Doodle celebrating Fourth of July Google
35/91 Wimbledon Championship Google Doodle celebrating Wimbledon Google
36/91 Victor Hugo Google Doodle celebrating Victor Hugo Google
37/91 Google Doodle celebrating Oskar Fischinger Google Doodle celebrating Oskar Fischinger Google
38/91 UK General Election 2017 Google celebrates the UK General Election Google
39/91 Zaha Hadid Google celebrates the acclaimed architect for becoming the first woman to win the Pritzker Architecture Prize on this day in 2004 Google
40/91 Richard Oakes Google Doodle celebrating Richard Oakes' 75 birthday Google
41/91 Google Doodle celebrating the Antikythera Mechanism Google Doodle celebrating the Antikythera Mechanism Google
42/91 Ferdinand Monoyer The famous French ophthalmologist, who invented the eye test, would have celebrated his 181st birthday today Google
43/91 Google Doodle celebrating Giro d'Italia's 100th Anniversary Google Doodle celebrating Giro d'Italia's 100th Anniversary Google
44/91 Google Doodle celebrating Nasa's Cassini probe Google Doodle celebrating Nasa's Cassini probe Google
45/91 Google Doodle celebrating Fazlur Rahman Khan Google Doodle celebrating Fazlur Rahman Khan Google
46/91 Google Doodle celebrating Sergei Diaghilev Google Doodle celebrating Sergei Diaghilev Google
47/91 Google Doodle celebrating St. Patrick's Day Google Doodle celebrating St. Patrick's Day Google
48/91 Google Doodle celebrating Holi Festival Google Doodle celebrating Holi Festival Google
49/91 Google Doodle celebrating St. David's Day Google Doodle celebrating St. David's Day Google
50/91 Abdul Sattar Edhi Google Doodle of Abdul Sattar Edhi on February 28 2017 Google
51/91 Seven earth-sized exoplanets discovered Google Doodle celebrates Nasa's discovery of seven earth-sized exoplanets in new solar system Google
52/91 Bessie Coleman Google Doodle honours the first African American woman to get an international pilot licence on her 125th birthday Google
53/91 Caroling Google Doodle celebrates Christmas caroling Google
54/91 Today's Google Doodle features activist Steve Biko Google
55/91 Walter Cronkite Google celebrates Walter Cronkite's 100th birthday
56/91 Ladislao José Biro Google celebrates Ladislao José Biro 117th birthday
57/91 Google Google celebrates its 18th birthday
58/91 The history of tea in Britain Google celebrates the 385th anniversary of tea in the UK
59/91 Autumnal equinox 2016 Google marks the start of fall
60/91 Paralympics 2016 Google marks the start of the Paralympic Games 2016
61/91 Nettie Stevens Google celebrates Nettie Stevens 155th birthday
62/91 Father's Day 2016 Google celebrates Father's Day
63/91 Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Google celebrates Elizabeth Garrett Anderson 180th birthday
64/91 Earth Day 2016 Google celebrates Earth Day
65/91 Ravi Shankar Google marks Pandit Ravi Shankar's 96th birthday
66/91 Olympic Games in 1896 Google are celebrates the 120th anniversary of the modern Olympic Games in 1896
67/91 World Twenty20 final Google celebrates the 2016 World Twenty20 cricket final between the West Indies and England with a doodle Google
68/91 William Morris Google celebrates William Morris' 182 birthday with a doodle showcasing his most famous designs Google
69/91 St Patrick's Day 2016 Googlle celebrates St Patrick's Day on 17 March
70/91 Caroline Herschel Google marks Caroline Herschel's 266th birthday Google
71/91 Clara Rockmore Google celebrates Clara Rockmore's 105th birthday
72/91 International Women's Day 2016 #OneDayIWill video marks International Woman's Day on 8 March
73/91 St David's Day 2016 Google marks St David's Day Google
74/91 Leap Year 2016 Google celebrates Leap Day on 28 February 2 Google
75/91 Lantern Festival 2016 Google celebrates the last day of the Chinese New Year celebrations with a doodle of the Lantern Festival Google
76/91 Stethoscope Inventor, René Laennec Google celebrate's René Laennec's 235th birthday
77/91 Valentine's Day 2016 Google celebrates Valentine's Day with a romantic Doodle
78/91 Dmitri Mendeleev Google celebrate Dmitri Mendeleev's 182nd birthday
79/91 "The televisor" demonstartion Google Doodle celebrates 90 years since the first demonstration of television or "the televisor" to the public
80/91 Professor Scoville Google marks Professor Scoville’s 151st birthday
81/91 Sophie Taeuber-Arp Google marks Sophie Taeuber-Arp's 127th birthday
82/91 Charles Perrault Google celebrates author Charles Perrault's 388th birthday
83/91 Mountain of Butterflies discovery Google celebrates the 41st anniversary of the discovery of the Mountain of Butterflies
84/91 Winter Solstice 2015 Google celebrate the Winter Solstice
85/91 St Andrew's Day 2015 Google marks St Andrew's Day with doodle featuring Scotland's flag and Loch Ness monster
86/91 41st anniversary of the discovery of 'Lucy' Google marks the 41st anniversary of the discovery of 'Lucy', the name given to a collection of fossilised bones that once made up the skeleton of a hominid from the Australopithecus afarensis species, who lived in Ethiopia 3.2 million years ago
87/91 George Boole Google marks George Boole's 200th birthday
88/91 Halloween 2015 Google celebrates Halloween using an interactive doodle game "Global Candy Cup"
89/91 Prague Astronomical Clock Google celebrates the 605th anniversary of the Prague Astronomical Clock, one of the oldest functioning timepieces in the world
90/91 Autumnal Equinox 2015 Google marks the autumnal equinox on 23 September
91/91 International Women's Day 2018 Google marks IWD with a doodle featuring a dozen female artists from 12 different countries
Following the meeting, Angelou, who was already a successful singer, organised the Cabaret for Freedom to support Dr King’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference. In 1968 Dr King asked her to organise a civil rights march, to which she agreed, but it came shortly before he was assassinated.
She had also become friends with Malcolm X, who she met in Ghana, where she lived during the early 1960s, working as a writer and editor as well as broadcasting on radio. In 1965 she returned to the US to help him create a new civil rights organisation - the Organisation of Afro-American Unity, but he was assassinated shortly afterwards.
While living a life full enough to write seven acclaimed autobiographies makes condensing Angelou’s extraordinary life into a short article an impossible task, here are five things you may not have known about her.
She was a professional dancer
In her early 20s, recently married and with a young son, Angelou began studying modern dance in San Francisco. She formed the dance team Al and Rita, before Angelou decided to move to New York in order to study African dance with Trinidadian dancer Pearl Primus. She went on to dance professionally in clubs in San Francisco, including at the famous beat-era nightclub, The Purple Onion.
Her success as a calypso dancer paved the way for Angelou to record her first album as a singer, Miss Calypso.
She won a Grammy award
Though Angelou saw success as a singer, she won a Grammy award in 1995 not for her many musical works, but for a recording of her poem On The Pulse of Morning, which she recited at the inauguration of President Bill Clinton in 1993.
The recitation was the first at a presidential inauguration since Robert Frost at President John F Kennedy’s 1961 inauguration.
She directed a film starring Wesley Snipes
Wesley Snipes, whose more famous roles are for action films such as Demolition Man and the Blade trilogy, was among the cast in Angelou’s 1996 film Down in the Delta.
The film explored family tragedy, drugs, race and prejudice, and redemption.
Her writing routine involved sherry, the bible and a deck of cards
Angelou’s writing routine remains the stuff of legends.
According to several sources, in later life when already a successful writer, Angelou would get up at 5am and check into a hotel room where staff had been told to take down any pictures from the walls.
She would then lie on the bed with a bottle of sherry, Roget’s Thesaurus and the Bible, as well as a deck of cards to play Solitaire with. She wrote on yellow legal pads and reportedly averaged 10-12 pages a day, which she then edited down to three or four pages in the evening.
She wrote about working in the sex trade to help people speak about their experiences
According to her autobiographies, Angelou worked as a prostitute and also as a madame for lesbian prostitutes.
In a 1995 interview, she explained the importance of writing about these subjects.
Maya Angelou: In her own words
6 show all Maya Angelou: In her own words
1/6 'There’s a world of difference between truth and facts. Facts can obscure the truth' Maya Angelou with her book, 'I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings', in 1971 AP
2/6 'Segregation shaped me, and education liberated me' Maya Angelou in Washington in 1992 AP
3/6 'Prejudice is a burden that confuses the past, threatens the future and renders the present inaccessible' Maya Angelou delivers a speech in 1995 EPA
4/6 'Good done anywhere is good done everywhere' Maya Angelou smiles during an interview in 2005 AP
5/6 'At 15 life had taught me undeniably that surrender, in its place, was as honourable as resistance, especially if one had no choice' Maya Angelou speaks during the 9th Annual Maya Angelou Women Who Lead Luncheon in 2011 AP
6/6 'Until blacks and whites see each other as brother and sister, we will not have parity. It’s very clear' Maya Angelou with President Barack Obama in 2011 AP
She said: “I wrote about my experiences because I thought too many people tell young folks, 'I never did anything wrong. Who, Moi? - never I. I have no skeletons in my closet. In fact, I have no closet.' They lie like that and then young people find themselves in situations and they think, 'Damn I must be a pretty bad guy. My mom or dad never did anything wrong.' They can’t forgive themselves and go on with their lives.”
Born Marguerite Annie Johnson, Dr. Maya Angelou was never named an official United States Poet Laureate, but few have reached her level of cultural significance. Her verses are at the very heart of the American experience.
Yet she didn’t start out as a poet. She began her artistic career as a dancer, performing in San Francisco and training in New York City. But that was just the tip of the iceberg for a woman who lived an incredible, adventurous life that defied a humble childhood.
Here are 10 facts about Maya Angelou, who would have turned 90 years old today.
1. SHE WAS THE FIRST BLACK WOMAN TO CONDUCT A CABLE CAR IN SAN FRANCISCO.
As a teenager, Maya Angelou earned a scholarship to study dance and drama at the California Labor School, but she briefly dropped out when she was 16 to become a cable car conductor in San Francisco. “I saw women on the street cars with their little changer belts,” she told Oprah Winfrey, explaining why she wanted the job. “They had caps with bibs on them and form-fitting jackets. I loved their uniforms. I said that is the job I want.” She got it, and became the first black woman to hold the position.
2. PORGY AND BESS TOOK HER TO EUROPE.
Astrid Stawiarz, Getty Images
After actors spotted her singing in a nightclub and asked if she could dance, Angelou got her foot in the door to join a touring company for Porgy and Bess. She turned down a lead role in a Broadway production of House of Flowers to join the company because it gave her the opportunity to travel throughout Europe. "The producers of House of Flowers asked me, 'Are you crazy? You're going to take a minimal role in a play going on the road when we're offering you a principal role for a Broadway play?,'" Angelou recalled to NPR. "I said, I'm going to Europe. I'm going to get a chance to see places I ordinarily would never see, I only dreamed of in the little village in Arkansas in which I grew up. Oh, no, I'm going with Porgy and Bess." She said it was the one of the best decisions she ever made.
3. SHE SPOKE SIX LANGUAGES.
Angelou's time in Europe also gave her the chance to hear other languages, and she paid very close attention. Ultimately, she learned to speak French, Spanish, Hebrew, Italian, and Fante (a dialect of Akan native to Ghana).
4. SHE DIDN’T SPEAK FOR FIVE YEARS IN HER YOUTH.
When she was just a child, Angelou was sexually assaulted by her mother’s boyfriend. She told her brother about the incident, and was later called to testify against the man in court, which led to his conviction. Ultimately, he served just one day in jail. Four days after his release, he was murdered—presumably by one of Angelou's family members—and Angelou blamed herself for his death.
“I thought, my voice killed him,” she later wrote of her attacker. “I killed that man, because I told his name. And then I thought I would never speak again, because my voice would kill anyone." For the next five years, Angelou refused to speak. Literature helped her find her voice again.
5. SHE EDITED THE ARAB OBSERVER.
The Arab Observer was one of very few English-language news outlets in the Middle East during its publication from 1960 to 1966. While traveling in Egypt, Angelou met and married civil rights activist Vusumzi Make, and, after moving to Cairo, she scored a job as an editor for the Observer after W.E.B. Du Bois’s stepson David fudged her credentials. She’d never worked as a journalist before, but her job at the Observer tossed her into the deep end of reporting while working in an office full of men who’d never worked with a woman before.
"Du Bois said I was an experienced journalist, wife of a freedom fighter, and an expert administrator," Angelou said. "Would I be interested in the job of associate editor? If so I should realize that since I was neither Egyptian, Arabic, nor Moslem and since I would be the only woman working in the office, things would not be easy. He mentioned a salary that sounded like pots of gold to my ears."
6. SHE WROTE AND DIRECTED SEVERAL MOVIES.
By the end of her career, there were very few art forms Angelou hadn’t participated in (which is how she wound up with both a Tony and a Pulitzer Prize nomination and three Grammy wins), but it’s still delightfully surprising to know that Angelou was also a filmmaker. She first acted and sang in 1957’s Calypso Heat Wave but eventually turned to screenwriting for 1972’s Georgia, Georgia (a romance about an African American singer who falls in love while performing in Stockholm), and then to directing with 1998’s Down in the Delta starring Alfre Woodard and Wesley Snipes.
7. MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR. WAS ASSASSINATED ON HER BIRTHDAY.
Angelou was friends with James Baldwin and had planned to help Malcolm X build the Organization of Afro-American Unity, a new civil rights organization, shortly before his assassination. She was also a coordinator for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and organized with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. In early 1968, Dr. King asked Angelou to tour the country to promote the SCLC, but she postponed in order to plan her birthday party. It was on her 40th birthday, April 4, 1968, that Dr. King was assassinated in Memphis. His death sent her into a deep depression.
8. SHE WAS ONLY THE SECOND POET IN HISTORY TO RECITE WORK AT A PRESIDENTIAL INAUGURATION.
STEPHEN JAFFE, AFP/Getty Images
When President John F. Kennedy took the oath of office in 1961, the legendary Robert Frost became the first poet to participate in the inauguration ceremony. Lending her voice to President Bill Clinton’s inauguration in 1993, Angelou was the first poet since Frost to enjoy the honor of the august platform, reading the centuries-spanning epic “On the Pulse of Morning,” which she wrote for the occasion. Her recitation scored her a 1994 Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album.
9. SHE WAS AN AVID CHEF, AND WROTE TWO COOKBOOKS.
Is there anything Angelou couldn’t do? She used Hallelujah! The Welcome Table to explore recipes that held personal meaning for her, and with Great Food, All Day Long, she shared an abiding love of preparing meals for others while focusing on healthy courses. “If this book finds its way into the hands of bold, adventurous people, courageous enough to actually get into the kitchen and rattle pots and pans, I will be very happy,” Angelou wrote in the introduction to the latter title.
10. SHE HAD HER OWN LINE OF HALLMARK GREETING CARDS.
In 2000, at the age of 72, Angelou penned a series of two-sentence sentiments for the iconic greeting card company that adorned cards and serving dishes. Fully aware she’d face criticism for diminishing her stature with a commercial venture (including from her own publisher at Random House), she responded by saying, “If I’m America’s poet, or one of them, then I want to be in people’s hands. All people’s hands. People who would never buy a book.”
