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Maya Angelou Research Paper

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Singer, writer, dancer, and much more were careers in which Maya Angelou studied throughout her life(Maya Angelou DISCovering Authors). Born in St. Louis in 1928, her and her brother were brought up by her grandmother. Through the course of her life, she moved around quite a bit due to her jobs as well as marriages. Maya Angelou decided to join the civil rights movement as an activist(Maya Angelou UXL). Soon after that, Dr. Martin
(Maya Angelou UXL Junior)
Luther King Jr. requested Maya to be a coordinator(Maya Angelou Encyclopedia ). During 1971, after the civil rights ended, she published her first book. Maya Angelou’s poetry was most certainly influenced.
Mid 1950s to late 1960s, African Americans struggled. African Americans wanted …show more content…

In the late 1960s, blacks were still struggling with equality. On the positive side, Maya Angelou became an activist of the civil rights movement, in which she tried to find equality(Historical Context). The civil rights (Maya Angelou Activist) movement matured her as well as her writing(Maya Angelou DISCovering Authors ). For instance, “The free bird thinks of another breeze../But a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams” which compares whites, the free birds, to the blacks, caged birds. As a black female during this time, Maya Angelou learned how to be proud of who she was because the world will always be filled with prejudice.
Maya Angelou’s work reflects greatly on the influence of women in her life (Maya Angelou DISCovering Authors ). One of her biggest female influences was Mrs. Flowers, who happened to be her next door neighbor during her childhood. She was beautiful, cultivated, and a prideful black. Mrs. Flowers took Maya under her wing and taught her to love books (Maya Angelou Exploring). In “Phenomenal Woman” by Maya Angelou she states “Now you understand/ Just why my head’s not bowed.” in relation to Mrs. Flowers being able to teach her to be proud of who she is. Maya Angelou was inspired due to the person Mrs. Flowers

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