Maya Angelou

CTL-E-5880 · Person · writer · 1928–2014

VERIFIED evidence grade — build store (JSON graph)

Combined Graph record U-07130 · provenance: build store (JSON graph), record CTL-E-5880.

Maya Angelou (April 4, 1928 – May 28, 2014), born Marguerite Annie Johnson in St. Louis, Missouri, was an American writer, poet, performer, and civil rights activist whose autobiographies reshaped American memoir. The first of seven, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969), brought her international fame; Dartmouth's memorial wrote that in it Angelou taught Americans once again that truth and beauty await discovery in the examined life. Before and alongside the books she worked as a singer, dancer, actress, and journalist, and she was a veteran of the civil rights movement. In 1982 she became Reynolds Professor of American Studies at Wake Forest University, a lifetime appointment she held until her death. On January 20, 1993, she recited her poem “On the Pulse of Morning” at the inauguration of President Bill Clinton, becoming only the second poet to take part in a presidential inauguration, after Robert Frost in 1961. On February 15, 2011, President Barack Obama awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor. Angelou died at her home in North Carolina on May 28, 2014, at age eighty-six.

The record

• Also known as: Marguerite Annie Johnson

Notes

Staged 2026-10-16 under CTL-GOV-006 (Scan Tail Wave 1 — 747 Program, Wave 8; first Scan Tail packet at the founder's 40-record size). Gate A (2026-10-16): no Maya Angelou entity in the live graph at 3,523 entities (exact / normalized / alias + token containment); ID CTL-E-5880 free. Supply: 747 Supply Ledger, Tier 4 — corpus scan tail tranche (corpus-gap-candidates-2026-10-15.json ranked clean survivor #362). The scan supplied the NAME STRING ONLY; no fact in this record is sourced to it (CTL-GOV-004). SCOPE GATE: PASS — a central figure of Black American letters whose memoir and inaugural poem are core national cultural record. Vital status: DECEASED (May 28, 2014, per CNN Fast Facts and Dartmouth's memorial); tribute treatment. STATISTICS (sourced, dated): author of seven autobiographies (GradeSaver biography, accessed 2026-10-16); Presidential Medal of Freedom awarded February 15, 2011 (CNN Fast Facts). No sales or circulation statistic is asserted. MEDIA: photo HELD (no image verified at file-page level in this pass; named candidate is the Clinton White House photograph of Maya Angelou reading at the 1993 inauguration); chart FILLED (charts/chart-ctl-e-5880-maya-angelou.svg); video HELD (no matching-entity CTL Short in the catalog and no verified embeddable archival video staged); audio HELD (recordings of Angelou's spoken-word performances exist commercially, but no audio with a verified rights basis was staged in this pass). MEDIA LAYER (staged 2026-10-16; full per-asset PHOTO-001 records + embed specs in the packet's staged JSON, Drive packet folder): map = N/A (Person records carry no map slot under the media-layer rule; maps attach to places and institutions.) | visual_assets = HELD: | chart = FILLED (CTL-created SVG (black / deep red / gold) built only from this record's sourced facts) | video = HELD (No matching-entity CTL Short in the Shorts Link Map catalog (checked by name and variants), and no official/em) | audio = HELD (Recordings of Angelou's spoken-word performances exist commercially, but no audio with a verified rights basis)

Sources

• CNN, "Maya Angelou Fast Facts" (accessed 2026-10-16) — recited 'On the Pulse of Morning' at President Clinton's inauguration, January 20, 1993, the second poet at a presidential inauguration after Robert Frost (1961); awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Obama, February 15, 2011; died May 28, 2014 at her home in North Carolina — https://www.cnn.com/us/maya-angelou-fast-facts?cid=external-feeds_iluminar_meta (build store)
• Dartmouth, "At Dartmouth, Remembering the Poet Maya Angelou" (May 2014) — died May 28, 2014 at 86; the 'monumental 1969 autobiography' I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings; read at the 1993 Clinton inauguration; Medal of Freedom in 2011; Reynolds Professor of American Studies at Wake Forest since 1982 — https://home.dartmouth.edu/news/2014/05/dartmouth-remembering-poet-maya-angelou (primary source · build store)
• TakeMeBack, "Maya Angelou — Biography, Age, Birthday" (accessed 2026-10-16) — born April 4, 1928; died May 28, 2014 (age 86), birthplace St. Louis, Missouri — https://takemeback.to/people/maya-angelou (build store)

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Record CTL-E-5880 · Combined Graph record U-07130 · CultureTechLens Knowledge Graph · 3 sources.
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Researched and maintained by the CultureTechLens research program · CultureTechLens Combined Graph, Release 2026-11-04. Corrections are public: the corrections log.

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