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GRAVITAS MAGAZINE GravitasMag.com | 73 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. Maya Angelou Continued page 74 recognizes A ngelou as one of the most distinguished voices captivating A merican literature, histor y and culture, almost a year to the day of her death at the age of 86. Humble Beginnings Born Marguerite A nnie Johnson on April 4, 1928 in St. Louis, Maya A ngelou was born into a world filled with poverty and racial tensions. A ngelou's parents, a nurse and a doorman, in what she called a "calamitous marriage" ended when she was just three years old. At that time, A ngelou and her older brother were sent to Stamps, A rkansas to live with their grandmother. In Stamps, A ngelou spent four years growing up in an environment that was considered luxurious compared to the ravages of the Great Depression, thanks to her grandmother's successful general store. But this didn't last long; when A ngelou was seven, her father returned and took them back to St. Louis to live with their mother. As an A frican A merican growing up in rural A rkansas, A ngelou experienced racial prejudices and discrimination. She was also the victim of violence at the age of seven. A ngelou was sexually assaulted by a man named Freeman, who was her mother's boyfriend. When she confided in her brother and revealed the name of her aacker in the barbaric act, A ngelou's uncles retaliated and k illed the boyfriend. She was so devastated by the aack – and the subsequent murder – that she stopped talk ing for five years. A ngelou said she felt a sense of guilt that led her to believe that "my voice would k ill anyone," a phrase she coined years later upon reflection of the incident. While this period would have a profound impact on A ngelou for the rest of her life, it also propelled her to become became introverted and thoughtful. She developed a love for reading and literature, as well as deep introspection and a strong sense of obser vation. A ngelou didn't start speak ing again until she and her brother were sent back to live with her mother in San Francisco at the age of 13. She credited a teacher with not only introducing her to the classics, but also helping her to speak again and later would aend the California Labor School on scholarship to study dance and acting. In 1944, A ngelou gave birth to her son, Clyde, at the age of 17 aer a short-lived relationship with the boy's father. As a high school dropout and single mother, A ngelou supported herself by work ing several odd jobs as a waitress and cook, and became the city's first black female cable car conductor. A few years later, she married A nastasios A ngelopoulos, a Greek sailor and would later take a combination of his name and her name to rename herself Maya A ngelou. BELOW: In 1957, at the height of the Harry Belafonte-inspired calypso craze in America, she recorded her first and only album, Miss Calypso. She composed five of the album's 14 tracks and is the lead singer on the entire album. " "