Maya Angelou was born Marguerite Annie Johnson in St.
Louis, Missouri.
Her parents divorced when she was only three and she was sent with
her brother Bailey to live with their grandmother in the small town of
Stamps, Arkansas.
In Stamps, the young...
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Maya Angelou was born Marguerite Annie Johnson in St.
Louis, Missouri.
Her parents divorced when she was only three and she was sent with
her brother Bailey to live with their grandmother in the small town of
Stamps, Arkansas.
In Stamps, the young girl experienced the racial
discrimination that was the legally enforced way of life in the American
South, but she also absorbed the deep religious faith and old-fashioned
courtesy of traditional African American life.
She credits her
grandmother and her extended family with instilling in her the values
that informed her later life and career.
She enjoyed a close relationship
with her brother, who gave her the nickname Maya when they were very
young.
At age seven, while visiting her mother in Chicago, she was sexually
molested by her mother s boyfriend.
Too ashamed to tell any of the
adults in her life, she confided in her brother.
When she later heard the
news that an uncle had killed her attacker, she felt tha
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