Maya Angelou (1991)

Maya Angelou: author, poet, educator, playwright, actress, historian, civil rights activist, producer, director and world traveler. From St. Louis, Missouri, to Stamps, Arkansas, to San Francisco, Europe, Africa, Harlem and beyond, Angelou’s life has been a journey towards self-hood. Since the publication of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, the classic first volume of her continuing autobiography, Angelou has enriched us, book after book, with what James Baldwin has called the “moving wonder” and “luminous dignity” with which she confronts her life. “You may encounter many defeats,” she instructs us, “but you must not be defeated.”