On the 88th birth anniversary of Maya Angelou, here's all that the caged bird sang

American writer, poet, actress and civil rights activist Maya Angelou was born on 4th April 1928 in Missouri. Her work includes seven volumes of autobiography, poetry, screenplays and TV shows.

Maya Angelou was born as Marguerite Johnson in St Louis, Missouri on 4 April 1928 to Vivian Baxter Johnson,a nurse and nightclub habituee and Bailey Johnson a doorman and navy cook. (AP) 

She spent ten years of her childhood in America's South, witnessing racial aggression and prejudices. She was raped at the age of seven and the subsequent murder of her attacker by her family made her decide to not speak. she believed her voice killed a man and it so it wasn't safe to speak. (AP)

During the 60's she worked for Martin Luther King's Southern Christian Leadership Conference and later for Vusumzi Make, a South African activist. In the image, Angelou is seen with first lady Betty Ford, third from right in New York, Apr 8, 1976. (AP)

Angelou received wider acclaim with her poetry, her screenplays like 'Georgia, Georgia'. She played Kunte Kinte's grandmother in the TV series, 'Roots', which explored the experience of slavery. Image shows a still from the TV series Roots with Maya in the background.(AP)

She was active in the Civil Rights movement and later it was prolific writer James Baldwin who persuaded her to take up writing. The first part of her biography was a best seller and it was followed by six volumes. In the image, Angelou is seen with Martin Luther King's widow Coretta King Scott. (AP)

She also became the first Black-American to direct a feature film, 'Down in Delta' (1998). Angelou speaks while receiving the Literary Arts Award, while first lady Michelle Obama listens. (AP)

'You will never love poetry until you actually feel it come across your tongue, through your teeth, over your lips.' Maya Angelou died on 28 May 2014. (AP)