Today's #GoogleDoodle celebrates Dr. Maya Angelou's 90th birthday! Set to her poem #StillIRise, the video Doodle includes her own voice along with the voices of other individuals whose lives she has inspired. View the full experience here: https://t.co/5yNw2jNomx pic.twitter.com/5BYItwm4xl
— Maya Angelou (@DrMayaAngelou) April 4, 2018
At age 7, Angelou was raped by her mother's boyfriend -- an experience that rendered her mute for five years.
"During those years, however, books and poetry became her solace and constant companions, eventually helping her find her voice again to embark upon an intellectual and creative journey that defies description," Google wrote in a blog post.
Angelou went on to perform in professional cabarets, covered Africa as a journalist and became a champion for civil rights.
She became the first black woman to write a bestselling nonfiction book — her 1969 memoir, “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.”
In 1998, she directed the film “Down in the Delta,” about a drug-wrecked woman who returns to the home of her ancestors in the Mississippi Delta.
Angelou was also the first poet in three decades to make an inaugural recitation when Bill Clinton became president in 1992.
She died at age 86 on May 28, 2014.
Related: Celebrities react to the death of Maya Angelou
"Maya Angelou is not what she has done or written or spoken, it's how she did it all. She moved through the world with unshakeable calm, confidence, and a fiery, fierce grace and abounding love," Winfrey said in the Google blog.
To honor the prolific poet on her 90th birthday, here are seven quotes to remember her by:
1. “There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.”
2. “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
3. “We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty.”
4. “You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them.”
5. “Have enough courage to trust love one more time and always one more time.”
6. “If you don't like something, change it. If you can't change it, change your attitude.”
7. “The desire to reach for the stars is ambitious. The desire to reach hearts is wise.”
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