Maya Angelou is an eccentric, remarkable woman who has contributed greatly to our nation. She was the first black and first woman streetcar conductor in San Francisco (during WWII). In 1960-1961, she was asked by Martin Luther King Jr. to be the northern coordinator of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. For the 1993 presidential inauguration, Maya read her poem 'On the Pulse of Morning'. She was the first African American woman to do so. Some even …showed first 75 words of 710 total…

…showed last 75 words of 710 total…where she gives with all her heart and soul. Angelou's many honors included an American Academy of Achievement Award in 1990 and a Horatio Alger Award in 1992; she also received more than fifty honorary degrees. Angelou' s work reached its largest single audience in January 1993 when she recited her poem "On the Pulse of Morning" at the inauguration of President William Clinton; she was the first poet to receive such an invitation since Robert Frost in 1961.