Maya Angelou has accomplished much more than being a world-renown poet, novelist, and historian. She's also a director, producer, and screenwriter. To arrive at this level of success, Maya had to overcome many obstacles including dropping out of high school, having a child at a young age and being involved with prostitutes and pimps.
             Maya's life has never been perfect. As a teen, her infatuation with the arts won her a scholarship to study dance and drama at San Francisco's Labor School. When she was 14, she dropped out of school to become San Francisco's first African American female cable car conductor. She later finished high school and gave birth to a son, Guy, a few weeks after graduation. As a young single mother, she supported her son by working as a waitress and a cook, but her passion for music, dance, performance, and poetry would soon take her to center stage. She eventually traveled to Egypt to pursue her passion for dancing and acting. She also became a lead newspaper journalist in India. After she traveled much of the world dancing, acting and writing, she returned to the United States where she wrote her first screenplay, "Georgia, Georgia." She then began acting in movies. In 1996 she directed her first film down in the Delta, becoming Hollywood's first African American Woman director.
             In the 1950's, Maya Angelou joined the Harlem Writers Guild. There she met a number of well-known African American writers. After hearing civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. speak for the first time in 1960, she joined the Civil Rights movement, going on to organize and become the Northern Coordinator of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Heavily involved in the Civil Rights movement, Maya later began working alongside Malcolm X, helping him run his organization African American Unity (AAU). The organization collapsed following Malcolm's assassination which allowed Dr.Martin Luther King Jr to continue workin...