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Themes In Maya Angelou's Autobiographies
The themes encompassed in African-American writer Maya Angelou's seven autobiographies include racism, identity, family, and travel. Angelou (1928–2014) is best known for her first autobiography, ''I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings'' (1969). The rest of the books in her series are '' Gather Together in My Name'' (1974), '' Singin' and Swingin' and Gettin' Merry Like Christmas'' (1976), ''The Heart of a Woman'' (1981), '' All God's Children Need Traveling Shoes'' (1986), '' A Song Flung Up to Heaven'' (2002), and '' Mom & Me & Mom'' (2013). Beginning with ''Caged Bird'' and ending with her final autobiography, Angelou uses the metaphor of a bird (which represents the confinement of racism and depression) struggling to escape its cage, as described in the Paul Laurence Dunbar poem " Sympathy". Angelou's autobiographies can be placed in the African-American literature tradition of political protest. Their unity underscores one of Angelou's central themes: the injustice of racism ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Angelou At Clinton Inauguration
Maya Angelou ( ; born Marguerite Annie Johnson; April 4, 1928 – May 28, 2014) was an American memoirist, popular poet, and civil rights activist. She published seven autobiographies, three books of essays, several books of poetry, and is credited with a list of plays, movies, and television shows spanning over 50 years. She received dozens of awards and more than 50 honorary degrees. Angelou is best known for her series of seven autobiographies, which focus on her childhood and early adult experiences. The first, ''I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings'' (1969), tells of her life up to the age of 17 and brought her international recognition and acclaim. She became a poet and writer after a string of odd jobs during her young adulthood. These included fry cook, sex worker, nightclub performer, ''Porgy and Bess'' cast member, Southern Christian Leadership Conference coordinator, and correspondent in Egypt and Ghana during the decolonization of Africa. She was also an actress, w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Maya Angelou Visits YCP Feb 2013
Maya may refer to: Civilizations * Maya peoples, of southern Mexico and northern Central America ** Maya civilization, the historical civilization of the Maya peoples ** Maya language, the languages of the Maya peoples * Maya (Ethiopia), a population native to the old Wej province in Ethiopia Places * Maya (river), a river in Yakutia, Russia * Maya (Uda), a river in Khabarovsk Krai, Russia * Maya, Uganda, a town * Maya, Western Australia, a town * Maya Karimata, an island in West Borneo, Indonesia * Maya Mountains, a mountain range in Guatemala and Belize ** Maya Biosphere Reserve, a nature reservation in Guatemala * Mount Maya, a mountain in Kobe, Japan ** Maya Station, a railway station in Kobe, Japan * La Maya (mountain), an alp in Switzerland * Al Maya or Maya, a town in Libya Religion and mythology * Maya religion, the religious practices of the Maya peoples of parts of Mexico and Central America ** Maya mythology, the myths and legends of the Maya civilization * ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Joanne Braxton
Joanne Margaret Braxton (born May 25, 1950) is an American author, teacher, and literary critic, an ordained minister, and CEO and President of the Board of the Braxton Institute. She has written about topics including Maya Angelou and the book ''Black Women Writing Autobiography''. Braxton has also edited works such as ''Wild Women in the Whirlwind: Afra-American Culture and the Contemporary Literary Renaissance'' and a collection of Paul Laurence Dunbar's poetry. She is an emeritus Frances L. and Edwin L. Cummings Professor of the Humanities at the College of William & Mary. Biography Joanne Margaret Braxton was born on May 25, 1950, in Lakeland, Maryland, to Harry McHenry Braxton and Mary Ellen Weems Braxton. She is the second born and has 3 brothers; James, Harry Jr. and Douglas, respectively. She attended the Northwestern Senior High School in Hyattsville, Maryland. She has a B.A. from Sarah Lawrence College and an M.A. and Ph.D. from Yale University, and an M.Div. from t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Autobiographical Fiction
An autobiography, sometimes informally called an autobio, is a self-written account of one's own life. It is a form of biography. Definition The word "autobiography" was first used deprecatingly by William Taylor in 1797 in the English periodical ''The Monthly Review'', when he suggested the word as a hybrid, but condemned it as "pedantic". However, its next recorded use was in its present sense, by Robert Southey in 1809. Despite only being named early in the nineteenth century, first-person autobiographical writing originates in antiquity. Roy Pascal differentiates autobiography from the periodic self-reflective mode of journal or diary writing by noting that " utobiographyis a review of a life from a particular moment in time, while the diary, however reflective it may be, moves through a series of moments in time". Autobiography thus takes stock of the autobiographer's life from the moment of composition. While biographers generally rely on a wide variety of documents ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Random House
Random House is an American book publisher and the largest general-interest paperback publisher in the world. The company has several independently managed subsidiaries around the world. It is part of Penguin Random House, which is owned by German media conglomerate Bertelsmann. History Random House was founded in 1927 by Bennett Cerf and Donald Klopfer, two years after they acquired the Modern Library imprint from publisher Horace Liveright, which reprints classic works of literature. Cerf is quoted as saying, "We just said we were going to publish a few books on the side at random," which suggested the name Random House. In 1934 they published the first authorized edition of James Joyce's novel ''Ulysses'' in the Anglophone world. ''Ulysses'' transformed Random House into a formidable publisher over the next two decades. In 1936, it absorbed the firm of Smith and Haas—Robert Haas became the third partner until retiring and selling his share back to Cerf and Klopfer in 19 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Robert Loomis
Robert Duane Loomis (August 24, 1926 – April 19, 2020) was an American book editor who worked at Random House from 1957 until his retirement in 2011. He has been called "one of publishing's hall of fame editors." Many of Loomis's authors had worked with him for decades, including Maya Angelou, who wrote 31 books under his editorship, beginning with her first autobiography, ''I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings'' (1969). His authors' loyalty to him, and his to them, was almost legendary. Loomis represented "the classic mold of the editor" and according to Random House, he "embodied the ideal of an old-fashioned editor: understated, but uncanny; polite, but persistent". As Angelou said, Loomis "knows what I hope to achieve in all my work. I don't know anybody as fierce, simply fierce, but he's as tender as he's tough." He was well known as a mentor to editors and writers in all areas of the publishing industry. Other notable authors who have been edited by Loomis include Calvi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jules Feiffer
Jules Ralph Feiffer (born January 26, 1929)''Comics Buyer's Guide'' #1650; February 2009; Page 107 is an American cartoonist and author, who was considered the most widely read satirist in the country. He won the Pulitzer Prize in 1986 as North-America's leading editorial cartoonist, and in 2004 he was inducted into the Comic Book Hall of Fame. He wrote the animated short ''Munro'', which won an Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film in 1961. The Library of Congress has recognized his "remarkable legacy", from 1946 to the present, as a cartoonist, playwright, screenwriter, adult and children's book author, illustrator, and art instructor. When Feiffer was 17 (in the mid-1940s) he became assistant to cartoonist Will Eisner. There he helped Eisner write and illustrate his comic strips, including ''The Spirit''. In 1956 he became a staff cartoonist at ''The Village Voice'', where he produced the weekly comic strip titled ''Feiffer'' until 1997. His cartoons became nationally sy ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Assassination Of Martin Luther King Jr
Martin Luther King Jr., an African-American clergyman and civil rights leader, was fatally shot at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, on April 4, 1968, at 6:01 p.m. CST. He was rushed to St. Joseph's Hospital, where he died at 7:05 p.m. He was a prominent leader of the civil rights movement and a Nobel Peace Prize laureate who was known for his use of nonviolence and civil disobedience. James Earl Ray, a fugitive from the Missouri State Penitentiary, was arrested on June 8, 1968, at London's Heathrow Airport, extradited to the United States and charged with the crime. On March 10, 1969, he pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 99 years in the Tennessee State Penitentiary. He later made many attempts to withdraw his guilty plea and to be tried by a jury, but was unsuccessful. Ray died in prison in 1998. The King family and others believe that the assassination was the result of a conspiracy involving the U.S. government, the mafia, and Memphis police, as alle ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Malcolm X
Malcolm X (born Malcolm Little, later Malik el-Shabazz; May 19, 1925 – February 21, 1965) was an American Muslim minister and human rights activist who was a prominent figure during the civil rights movement. A spokesman for the Nation of Islam until 1964, he was a vocal advocate for Black empowerment and the promotion of Islam within the Black community. A posthumous autobiography, on which he collaborated with Alex Haley, was published in 1965. Malcolm spent his adolescence living in a series of foster homes or with relatives after his father's death and his mother's hospitalization. He committed various crimes, being sentenced to 10 years in prison in 1946 for larceny and burglary. In prison he joined the Nation of Islam (adopting the name MalcolmX to symbolize his unknown African ancestral surname while discarding "the White slavemaster name of 'Little'"), and after his parole in 1952 quickly became one of the organization's most influential leaders. He was the public ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ghana
Ghana (; tw, Gaana, ee, Gana), officially the Republic of Ghana, is a country in West Africa. It abuts the Gulf of Guinea and the Atlantic Ocean to the south, sharing borders with Ivory Coast in the west, Burkina Faso in the north, and Togo in the east.Jackson, John G. (2001) ''Introduction to African Civilizations'', Citadel Press, p. 201, . Ghana covers an area of , spanning diverse biomes that range from coastal savannas to tropical rainforests. With nearly 31 million inhabitants (according to 2021 census), Ghana is the List of African countries by population, second-most populous country in West Africa, after Nigeria. The capital and List of cities in Ghana, largest city is Accra; other major cities are Kumasi, Tamale, Ghana, Tamale, and Sekondi-Takoradi. The first permanent state in present-day Ghana was the Bono state of the 11th century. Numerous kingdoms and empires emerged over the centuries, of which the most powerful were the Kingdom of Dagbon in the north and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Southern Christian Leadership Conference
The Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) is an African-American civil rights organization based in Atlanta, Georgia. SCLC is closely associated with its first president, Martin Luther King Jr., who had a large role in the American civil rights movement. Founding On January 10, 1957, following the Montgomery bus boycott victory against the white democracy and consultations with Bayard Rustin, Ella Baker, and others, Martin Luther King Jr. invited about 60 black ministers and leaders to Ebenezer Church in Atlanta. Prior to this, Rustin, in New York City, conceived the idea of initiating such an effort and first sought C. K. Steele to make the call and take the lead role. Steele declined, but told Rustin he would be glad to work right beside him if he sought King in Montgomery for the role. Their goal was to form an organization to coordinate and support nonviolent direct action as a method of desegregating bus systems across the South. In addition to King, Rustin, Ba ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Civil Rights Movement
The civil rights movement was a nonviolent social and political movement and campaign from 1954 to 1968 in the United States to abolish legalized institutional Racial segregation in the United States, racial segregation, Racial discrimination in the United States, discrimination, and disenfranchisement in the United States, disenfranchisement throughout the United States. The movement had its origins in the Reconstruction era during the late 19th century, although it made its largest legislative gains in the 1960s after years of direct actions and grassroots protests. The social movement's major nonviolent resistance and civil disobedience campaigns eventually secured new protections in federal law for the civil rights of all Americans. After the American Civil War and the subsequent Abolitionism in the United States, abolition of slavery in the 1860s, the Reconstruction Amendments to the United States Constitution granted emancipation and constitutional rights of citizenship ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
