Maya Angelou's Remarkable Achievements Maya Angelou's remarkable achievements include being an American poet, memoirist, and civil rights activist. She wrote seven autobiographies, three books of essays, several books of poetry, received dozens of awards and more than 500 degrees.
Early Challenges At the age of 15 in San Francisco, Maya became the first black streetcar conductor. At 16 years old she concealed her pregnancy from her mother and stepfather for eight months while still graduating from high school.