Respected American author and poet Maya Angelou has passed away at the age of 86. Her autobiographies are well known, describing personal experiences while growing up in the Jim Crowe South. Angelou was active in the Civil Rights Movement and was a prolific public speaker for most of her life. Her telling of the African American experience has long been required reading for US school children.
During her lifetime Angelou received many honors most notably a Pulitzer Prize and a Presidential Medal of Freedom.