About Dr. Maya Angelou

Dr. Angelou championed the unique health and wellness needs of women

We are deeply saddened by the passing of Dr. Maya Angelou on May 28, 2014. Her life was a testament to what one person can accomplish through perseverance, determination and kindness of heart. As a leader in the civil rights movement, an author and poet, and as a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, Dr. Angelou had a profound and lasting impact on our community, our state and the nation.

We are fortunate to have been associated with Dr. Angelou through her commitment to improve the lives and health of women and girls through the Maya Angelou Women's Health & Wellness Center at Forsyth Medical Center. Her presence will be missed but her spirit will remain. Our deepest condolences go out to her family and friends.

The Novant Health Maya Angelou Women’s Health & Wellness Center at Forsyth Medical Center, Winston-Salem, NC, is dedicated to one of the most renowned and influential voices of our time. Hailed as a global renaissance woman, Dr. Angelou is celebrated as a poet, memoirist, novelist, educator, dramatist, producer, actress, historian, filmmaker and civil rights activist.

Born on April 4, 1928, in St. Louis, Missouri, Dr. Angelou was raised in St. Louis and Stamps, Arkansas. In Stamps, she experienced the brutality of racial discrimination, but she also absorbed the unshakable faith and values of traditional African-American family, community, and culture.

As a teenager, Dr. Angelou’s love for the arts won her a scholarship to study dance and drama at San Francisco’s Labor School. At 14, she dropped out to become San Francisco’s first African-American female cable car conductor. She later finished high school, giving birth to her son, Guy, a few weeks after graduation. As a young single mother, she supported her son by working as a waitress and cook; however, her passion for music, dance, performance, and poetry would soon take center stage.

In 1954 and 1955, Dr. Angelou toured Europe with a production of the opera Porgy and Bess. She studied modern dance with Martha Graham, danced with Alvin Ailey on television variety shows and, in 1957, recorded her first album, Calypso Lady. In 1958, she moved to New York, where she joined the Harlem Writers Guild, acted in the historic Off-Broadway production of Jean Genet's The Blacks and wrote and performed Cabaret for Freedom.

In 1960, Dr. Angelou moved to Cairo, Egypt, where she served as editor of the English language weekly The Arab Observer. The next year, she moved to Ghana, where she taught at the University of Ghana's School of Music and Drama, worked as feature editor for The African Review and wrote for The Ghanaian Times.

During her years abroad, Dr. Angelou read and studied voraciously, mastering French, Spanish, Italian, Arabic and the West African language Fanti. While in Ghana, she met with Malcolm X and, in 1964, returned to America to help him build his new Organization of African American Unity.

Shortly after her arrival in the United States, Malcolm X was assassinated and the organization dissolved. Soon after Malcolm X's assassination, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., asked Dr. Angelou to serve as Northern Coordinator for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. King's assassination, falling on her birthday in 1968, left her devastated.

With the guidance of her friend, the novelist James Baldwin, she began work on the book that would become I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. In 1970, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings was published to international acclaim and enormous popular success. The list of her published verse, non-fiction, and fiction now includes more than 30 bestselling titles.

A trailblazer in film and television, Dr. Angelou wrote the screenplay and composed the score for the 1972 film Georgia, Georgia. Her script, the first by an African-American woman ever to be filmed, was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize.

She appeared on television and in films, including the landmark television adaptation of Alex Haley's Roots (1977) and John Singleton's Poetic Justice (1993). In 1996, she directed her first feature film, Down in the Delta. In 2008, she composed poetry for and narrated the award-winning documentary The Black Candle, directed by M.K. Asante.

Dr. Angelou served on two presidential committees, was awarded the Presidential Medal of Arts in 2000, the Lincoln Medal in 2008, and received three Grammy Awards. President Clinton requested that she compose a poem to read at his inauguration in 1993. Dr. Angelou's reading of her poem, entitled "On the Pulse of the Morning," was broadcast live around the world.

Dr. Angelou received over 30 honorary degrees and was the Reynolds Professor of American Studies at Wake Forest University.

Dr. Angelou’s words and actions continue to stir our souls, energize our bodies, liberate our minds and heal our hearts.