Maya Angelou

Beyoncé’s performance at Budweiser’s Made in America Festival on Saturday (5th September) was carefully orchestrated to include messages of female empowerment. The 34-year-old singer, who had celebrated her birthday the evening before, headlined the first day at the Festival held at Benjamin Franklin Parkway in Philadelphia.

Beyonce at the Vanity Fair Oscars party in L.A., February 2015.

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The US Postal Service’s attempt to commemorate the late author and civil rights activist Maya Angelou has ended in farce, after a postage stamp bearing her image contained a quotation that was, in fact, attributed to somebody else.

According to the Washington Post on Tuesday, the words that appear on the stamp - “A bird doesn’t sing because it has an answer, it sings because it has a song” – would seem to make reference to Angelou’s 1969 autobiography ‘I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings’.

However, though these words are associated with her they were not actually written by Angelou, but instead by Joan Walsh Anglund in her 1967 book of poetry ‘A Cup of Sun’, with the “it” on the stamp changed from a “he”.

Continue reading: Maya Angelou Memorial Stamp Goes Awry

Iconic American author, poet and journalist Maya Angelou died on May 28. Angelou was 86 years old and had been unwell for some time, canceling a number of recent appearances.  According to a statement released by her family she was found by her nurse.

Author Maya Angelou has died aged 86 years old

Born in 1928, Angelou spent her young years in Arkansas, shuffling between the homes of her mother and her grandmother. In these formative years she experienced life as a black girl living under white laws, and as a child dreamed of waking up to find herself white, with a blonde bob, as she believed white girls had it easier than black girls.

Continue reading: Remembering Maya Angelou, 1928-2014

Maya Angelou, the poet, author and activist generally considered one of America's finest writers of the last 50 years, has died. She was 86. Angelou is perhaps best known for her ground-breaking 1969 memoir I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings, the first of seven volumes of autobiography that traced Angelou's childhood of abuse in the Deep South in the 1930s.

Maya Angelou Has Died

A statement from Wake Forest University, where the author had been professor of American studies since 1982, said: "Dr Angelou was a national treasure whose life and teachings inspired millions around the world."

Continue reading: Maya Angelou Dies At 86, But Her Works Will Live On. Forever.

American writer, actress, singer and poet, Maya Angelou, was asked by her son to end his life when he lost the use of his legs. Guy Johnson was told he would never walk again after a car accident, when his spinal cord was severely damaged during his late 20s, leaving him paralysed from the neck down. Despite surviving the crash and being kept alive by several different machines, Johnson remained depressed. 

Maya Angelou discussed her son with Associated Press, explaining: "Guy Johnson is a wonder. He's been physically challenged. He was paralyzed from his neck down at one point. The doctors had told me, 'Your son, he will never move again, he will never walk again.' I said, 'My son will walk out of this hospital.'"

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Continue reading: Maya Angelou Discusses Her Son's Near-Death Experience