Maya Angelou was a legendary poet, Memoirist and civil rights activist. Angelou was one of the first African American women that was able to publicly write and discuss her personal life.

Angelou worked as a Southern Christian Leadership Conference Coordinator and correspondent in Egypt and Ghana during the decolonization of Africa.

Maya Angelou lived in several African countries from the late 1950s until 1962. She lived in South Africa and Egypt with her then partner, South African activist Vusumzi Make. In Cairo she had a job working at a newspaper. After her split from Make, Maya Angelou moved with her son to Ghana.

Angelou continued working as a journalist but soon noticed that there was a distance between locals and the African Americans. One of the reasons for that also was the language barrier, which then inspired her to learn Fanti - one of the Akan languages in Ghana. This led to her landing a job at the University of Ghana. In the two years Maya Angelou lived in Ghana, she left an impression that resulted in her being honored with a postal stamp.

In the early 1960s, more and more prominent African American figures started traveling to the country and Malcolm X was one of them. In Ghana, Maya Angelou and Malcolm met and had plans to build the Organization of Afro-American Unity. This initiative had a focus to foster unity with Africans and all people of African descent. This prompted Maya Angelou back to the United States but shortly after she returned, Malcolm X was assassinated.