Award-winning author, renowned poet and civil rights activist Dr. Maya Angelou was found dead in her Winston-Salem, N.C., home Wednesday morning. She was 86.
Winston-Salem Mayor Allen Jones confirmed Angelou's death to Fox News. Angelou, who rose from poverty as a child raised in St. Louis and Stamps, Ark., to become a cultural icon, gained widespread acclaim for her first book, her autobiography "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings," making her one of the first African-American women to write a best-seller.
In 1998, she directed the film "Down in the Delta" about a drug-addicted woman who returns to the home of her ancestors in the Mississippi Delta. She was the poet chosen to read at President Clinton's first inauguration in 1993 and later received the Medal of Freedom from President Obama in 2010.
"Like so many others, Michelle and I will always cherish the time we were privileged to spend with Maya," Obama said in a statement. "With a kind word and a strong embrace, she had the ability to remind us that we are all God's children; that we all have something to offer. And while Maya's day may be done, we take comfort in knowing that her song will continue, 'flung up to heaven' — and we celebrate the dawn that Maya Angelou helped bring."
