Lessons in Trust From Maya Angelou

Maya Angelou was a poet, singer, memoirist, and civil rights activist. She died in 2014 at the age of 86. She was a wise and respected woman, who grew beyond her abusive childhood and used her early experiences to help others.

At 16, she became the first black female streetcar conductor in San Francisco. Over the next 24 years, she worked as a calypso singer, waitress, dancer, actress, prostitute, and a madam. She began her journey to become the woman most of us knew - the writer, poet, and speaker at President Clinton’s inauguration - when she wrote her first book I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, at the age of 40 .

Childhood

Her life as a child was filled with deprivation and sexual abuse. These experiences shaped who she believed herself to be, and her view of life. Both in spite of and because of her early experiences, she was able to become a famous woman who spent her life working to help others.

During her life, she saw all sides of human nature, including its beauty and its horror. Maya learned about trust and love, and shared that in her writings and her life’s work. She wrote, “When someone shows you who they are believe them.”