Maya Angelou Maya Angelou, born April 4, 1928 as Marguerite Johnson in St. Louis, was raised in segregated rural Arkansas. She is a poet, historian, author, actress, playwright, civil-rights activist, and director. She has been working at Wake Forest University in north Carolina since 1981.She has published ten best selling books and numerous magazine articles earning her Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award nomination. At the request of President Clinton, she wrote and delivered a poem at his 1993 presidential inauguration. Whole her life, Maya Angelou has been trying to make something special in the poetry, history and in the film industry of the Afr