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Maya Angelou's Biography Maya Angelou's life has not been an easy one, but yet she has thrived to become an award winning author, poet, and playwright.

It was during the 1950s when she realized she wanted to be a writer and joined the Harlem Writer's Guild. Already a singer and a songwriter she was wowed by the power of words. While in Egypt with her family, she worked for a paper but met Malcolm X. It was during the 1960s when she returned to America to help Malcolm X that she became involved with the Civil Rights Movement. But soon after her arrival back in America, Malcolm X was assassinated. She continued her work for civil rights though, matching up with Martin Luther King, Jr. After his assassination on her very birthday, Maya began to write. To date she has written over 30 pieces of literature. She has worked for a handful of US Presidents in a variety of capacities. She was won the Presidential Medal of Arts and the Presidential Medal of Freedom and was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize.