Maya Angelou Birthplace
The Maya Angelou Birthplace in St. Louis, Missouri is a 19th century two-story home where writer, poet and activist Maya Angelou was born and spent the first three years of her life. The house, at 3120 Hickory Street, lies in the Gate District of St. Louis. When her parents divorced in 1931, Angelou and her brother, Bailey were sent to live with their grandmother in Arkansas. They returned to St. Louis four years later and lived in a different home in the same neighborhood. Angelou and her brother returned to Arkansas in 1936 and later moved to California in the early 1940's. After Angelou's death in 2014, the house was officially recognized as a St. Louis City Landmark.
Description
The brick two-story house at 3130 Hickory Street, now in the Gate District of St. Louis, was originally part of the neighborhood of "Compton Hill" when Angelou and her family live there. The Compton and Dry Pictorial St. Louis: The Great Metropolis of the Mississippi Valley. A Topographical Survey Drawn in Perspective A.D. 1875, illustrates that the Hickory Street house, which was visible in the published survey, was built in 1875 or earlier. The Compton Hill neighborhood was originally a working-class white neighborhood. In 1916, a new segregation law was passed in St. Louis that prevented any potential homeowner from moving to a neighborhood in which more than 75% of the residents were another race. By the time Angelou was born, Compton Hill was a segregated African American community. The neighborhood is bordered by Jefferson Avenue to the east, Lafayette Avenue to the south, Grand Boulevard to the west and the railroad tracks to the north. Many in the neighborhood worked at the nearby rail yards.The St. Louis Board of Aldermen designated the house as a city landmark in 2015 after Angelou's death in 2014.