Maya Angelou Role Model

Maya Angelou is a role model to me because she was an American author, poet, and civil rights activist. At the age of eight, while living with her mother, Angelou was sexually abused and raped by her mother's boyfriend, a man named Freeman. Eventually Freeman was found guilty but was jailed for only one day. Four days after his release, he was murdered, probably by Angelou's uncles. Angelou became mute for almost five years, it was during this period of silence when Angelou developed her extraordinary memory, her love for books and literature, and her ability to listen and observe the world around her. In Accra, she became close friends with Malcolm X during his visit in the early 1960s. Angelou returned to the U.S. in 1965 to help him build a new civil rights organization, the Organization of Afro-American Unity; he was assassinated shortly afterward. Devastated and adrift, she joined her brother in Hawaii, where she resumed her singing career, and then moved back to Los Angeles to focus on her writing career. In 1968, Martin Luther King, Jr. asked Angelou to organize a march. She agreed, but "postpones again", he was assassinated on her 40th birthday. She had accomplished more than many artists hope to achieve in a lifetime. She was given a multitude of awards during this period, including over thirty honorary degrees from colleges and universities from all over the world. She returned to the southern United States in 1981 …show more content…
In the run-up to the January Democratic primary in South Carolina, the Clinton campaign ran ads featuring Angelou's endorsement. The ads were part of the campaign's efforts to rally support in the Black community; but Obama won the South Carolina primary, finishing 29 points ahead of Clinton and taking 80% of the Black vote. When Clinton's campaign ended, Angelou put her support behind Senator Barack