Maya Angelou Reading Comprehension
Maya Angelou was a writer, dancer, singer,
actor, director and civil rights activist. She
was born in America at the start of the Great
Depression and went on to become involved
in the country’s civil rights movement of
the 1950s and 60s. She was an influential
character in American social history.
Early Life
Angelou was born in 1928 in Missouri,
USA, to Vivian and Bailey Johnson. Named
Marguerite, she had an older brother, Bailey
Jnr, who nicknamed her Maya (because she years, preferring instead to read and observe
was ‘my-a sister’), and this name stuck with the world around her. It was only at the age
her throughout her life. of twelve that she began to speak again thanks
to the support of a family friend.
When Angelou was three, her parents split up
and she and her brother went to live in Arkansas Angelou studied at George Washington High
with their paternal aunt, Annie Henderson, School in San Francisco and won a scholarship
and their disabled uncle, Willie. Mrs Henderson to study dance and drama at the San Francisco
ran a business selling hot meals to workers Labor School (leaving briefly to take a job as
and eventually opened a grocery store which the city’s first ever African-American cable car
flourished despite the economic hardships of conductor). A few weeks after graduating from
the Great Depression and the Second World high school, at the age of 17, she gave birth to
War. The town was racially segregated and, as her son, Guy.
a black citizen, Angelou experienced a lot of
“My mother said I must always
prejudice as she was growing up.
be intolerant of ignorance but
understanding of illiteracy. That some
After four years living in Arkansas, the children
people, unable to go to school, were
went back to stay with their mother in St
more educated and more intelligent
Louis. This was a very dark time for Angelou;
than college professors.”
she was abused by her mother’s boyfriend,
who was eventually jailed for the crime – Living as a single-mother, Angelou took on a
but only for one day. When he was released, wide variety of jobs including working in a
he was immediately murdered (allegedly by fast food restaurant, in a mechanic’s shop and
Angelou’s uncles, in retaliation for what had as a dancer in a club. This was an experience
happened to her). Scarred by her experience, she later chronicled in ‘Gather Together in My
Angelou stopped talking altogether for five Name’.
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Photo courtesy of adria richards (via wikimedia commons) granted under creative commons licence

In 1951, Angelou married Tosh Angelos, a
former sailor and aspiring musician. They
worked together as dancers and moved briefly
to New York for a year so that Angelou could
study dance. During this time, Angelou started
using her childhood name Maya, coupled with
a form of her husband’s surname in order to
become Maya Angelou as she is known today.
Ultimately, the marriage was unsuccessful and
they separated in 1954.
Angelou continued to work as a dancer and
singer, touring Europe with a production of
‘Porgy and Bess’ and even releasing her own
album of calypso songs, titled ‘Miss Calypso’.
Africa
In 1960, while performing in a Jean Genet
play titled ‘The Blacks’, Angelou met Vusumzi
Make, a South African civil rights activist.
They moved to Cairo, together with Angelou’s
son, Guy. Angelou worked as the Editor
of ‘The Arab Observer’, a weekly English
language publication. In 1962, she split
up with Make and she and her son moved
to Ghana, where Angelou worked on the
‘Ghanaian Times’ and ‘The Africa Review’. By now,
she could speak several languages in addition
to English: French, Italian, Arabic, Spanish and
Fanti (a West African language). During this
period, Guy was seriously hurt in a motoring
accident. Angelou stayed with him during
his recovery, but eventually left him in Africa
when she journeyed back to America in 1965.
Writing
In 1959, Angelou joined the Harlem Writers’
Guild at the urging of her friend, the novelist John
Killens. Although she left to live in Africa shortly
afterwards, on her return she re-joined the group.
Writing Requirements
Angelou had strict requirements of the
environment in which she wrote: she preferred
it to be as austere as possible. She described
the ideal place to write as ‘a tiny, mean room
with just a bed, and sometimes, if I can find
it, a face basin. I keep a dictionary, a bible,
a deck of cards and a bottle of sherry in the
room. I try to get there around seven, and
work until around two in the afternoon.’
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Maya Angelou Reading Comprehension
In 1969, thanks to the encouragement of the
writer James Baldwin and the editor Robert
Loomis, she published ‘I Know Why the Caged
Bird Sings’, an autobiography about the poverty
and racial inequality she experienced in her
childhood. It became the first non-fiction novel
by a black woman to become a best-seller but,
although internationally acclaimed, the book
was banned in many schools because it included
a graphic account of her childhood abuse.
“If you don’t like something,
change it. If you can’t change it,
change your attitude.”
Angelou went on to write six more volumes of
autobiography, ‘Gather Together in My Name’
(1974), ‘Singin' and Swingin' and Gettin' Merry
Like Christmas’ (1976), ‘The Heart of a Woman’
(1981), ‘All God's Children Need Travelling Shoes’
(1986), ‘A Song Flung Up to Heaven’ (2002) and
‘Mom and Me and Mom’ (2013). Although teeming
with frank, funny and thoughtful anecdotes about
her life, they are often vague – Angelou did not
like to be too specific about exact dates or facts
– for example, she never actually confirmed the
number of times she had been married.

Angelou’s writing was not just confined to
autobiography; she was an acclaimed poet, and
in 1993 she was asked to write a poem for Bill
Clinton’s presidential inauguration. She was also
an accomplished performer of her own work; she
won the Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word
Album on three occasions. Possibly her most
famous poem, ‘Phenomenal Woman’, celebrates
being a woman and defies stereotypes of what
women should be; it was first published in
‘Cosmopolitan’ magazine in 1978.
"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."
A prolific writer, Angelou also penned children’s
books, essays, cook books and plays. She wrote
the script and music for the 1972 film ‘Georgia,
Georgia’, making her the first black woman to
write a screenplay for a feature film. She was
nominated for a Pulitzer Prize and awarded
the Presidential Medal of Arts in 2000 and the
Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2010. She
also received over 50 honorary degrees.
Later Life
In 1973, Angelou married Paul du Feu, a
Welsh carpenter, comic strip writer, and the
ex-husband of leading feminist Germaine
Greer. The pair met at a literary event and
their marriage lasted for eight years. In
1981, Angelou became Reynolds Professor of
American Studies at Wake Forest University
in Northern Carolina, a post which she held
for 33 years. She regularly gave lectures until
well into her 80s. In 2014, Angelou died
peacefully at her home in North Carolina,
aged 86.
Civil Rights Activism
Angelou was a passionate human rights activist
and spent much of her life campaigning for racial
equality. In 1960 she met Martin Luther King and
was inspired to organise a Cabaret for Freedom to
raise money for the Southern Christian Leadership
Conference (SCLC), a civil rights group. In 1968,
King asked Angelou to organise a march for black
rights, and she was in the process of doing this
when he was assassinated on her 40th birthday.
She was distraught, and refused to celebrate
her birthday for many years afterwards, instead
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Maya Angelou Reading Comprehension
sending a bouquet of flowers to King’s widow
every year. She attributed her determination in
writing ‘I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings’ in
part to his influence: ‘While I was writing it,
I thought about Dr Martin Luther King's ability to
forgive and I began to forgive others and myself.’
“It's one of the greatest gifts you
can give yourself, to forgive.
Forgive everybody.”
While living in Ghana, Angelou became friends
with the human rights activist Malcolm X, and
in 1965 she returned with him to the USA
to build a new civil rights group. This dream
was thwarted by his assassination shortly
after they arrived in the country. She was
devastated, and drifted for some time before
moving to New York in 1967, where she
met and became friends with the legendary
Rosa Parks. A decade before, Parks had
sparked an uprising after refusing to give
up her seat to a white person on a racially
segregated bus (she was consequently
arrested and became the figurehead for waves
of protests across America).

Angelou was vocal in her support for the
part Parks played in both the fight for
racial equality and equality for women,
explaining: ‘we women are fortunate to
scan the generations and discover women
who dared to be “sheroes” and role models
for girls and young women. Madame Curie,
Harriet Tubman, Eleanor Roosevelt and
Mrs Rosa Parks have brightened our days
Maya Angelou Reading Comprehension
and influenced our thoughts. Because of their done or written or spoken; it's how she lived
courage and insight, we have come to believe her life. She moved through the world with
we can be the best and deserve the best. unshakable calm, confidence and a fierce grace.’
Thanks to all of them.’
“Try to be a rainbow in
TV and Film someone’s cloud.”
A keen actress, dancer and singer, Angelou also
appeared on TV and in film. She was nominated ‘I loved her, and I know she loved me. I will
for an Emmy award for her role in the TV profoundly miss her. She will always be the
mini-series ‘Roots’ in 1977, and she appeared rainbow in my clouds.’
alongside music stars Janet Jackson and Tupac
Shakur in the Oscar-nominated romantic Angelou in Numbers
drama ‘Poetic Justice’ in 1993. In 1995, she
starred alongside Winona Ryder in the feature 3 number of Grammy awards won.
film ‘How to Make an American Quilt’.
5 number of years she was
electively mute.
7 volumes of her autobiography.
Angelou also wrote and presented a ten-part
documentary series on the blues music genre
and black African-American heritage, titled
‘Blacks, Blues, Black!’. In 1998, she directed a
17 age at which her son was born.
number of years as a
feature film, ‘Down in the Delta’.
33 university professor.
Angelou was a good friend of the American talk-
show host Oprah Winfrey. On Angelou’s death,
40 birthday on which Martin
Luther King was assassinated.
Winfrey commented ‘what stands out to me 86 age at her death.
most about Maya Angelou is not what she has
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