Author Maya Angelou dies at 86 in North Carolina
By 17, she was a single mother. In her early 20s, she danced at a strip joint, ran a brothel, was married, and then divorced. But by her mid-20s, she was performing at the Purple Onion in San Francisco.
She worked as a coordinator for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and lived for years in Egypt and Ghana, where she met Nelson Mandela, a longtime friend;
and Malcolm X, to whom she remained close until his assassination, in 1965.
Back in the 1960s, Malcolm X had written to Angelou and praised her for her ability to communicate so directly, with her “feet firmly rooted on the ground.”
http://news.yahoo.com/author-maya-angelou-dies-86-north-carolina-151746880.html
After death of Malcolm X in 1965, spent six months in Hawaii, ... visiting East-West Center.
http://archive.today/C2LV#selection-1033.0-1033.83
Angelou said that Barack Obama’s half-sister, Maya Soetoro-Ng, was named after her.
http://www.glamour.com/inspired/blogs/the-conversation/2013/01/maya-soetoro-ng-president-obam.html
The former stripper “was a mentor to Oprah Winfrey” and “delighted Clinton”.