Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Maya Angelou is found dead at her home aged 86 after final prophetic tweet

Maya Angelou, the groundbreaking poet and author who inspired millions of Americans with her moving memoirs and works of fiction, is dead at 86.

A caretaker found Angelou dead at her home in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, on Wednesday morning when she arrived to check on the ailing poet.

A hearse with a police escort pulled away from her home about 9am Wednesday after medics and detectives investigated the scene.

Her son Gary B. Johnson, her only child, issued a statement about the author's death: 'Dr. Maya Angelou passed quietly in her home before 8:00 a.m. EST. Her family is extremely grateful that her ascension was not belabored by a loss of acuity or comprehension.

'She lived a life as a teacher, activist, artist and human being. She was a warrior for equality, tolerance and peace. The family is extremely appreciative of the time we had with her and we know that she is looking down upon us with love.'

Angelou had been struggling with health problems in recent weeks and had canceled a May 30 appearance at the 2014 MLB Beacon Award Luncheon in Houston, where she was to be honored with the 'Beacon Life Award.'

The civil rights icon blamed her failing health for missing the event.

She remained active, even as her health began to deteriorate. On May 23, five days before her death, she tweeted, 'Listen to yourself and in that quietude you might hear the voice of God.'

Angelou has been celebrated as one of the greatest writers of her generation, bringing light to the struggles of women and African Americans - as well as the human condition, writ large.

Her very name as an adult was a reinvention. Angelou was born Marguerite Johnson in St. Louis and raised in Stamps, Arkansas, and San Francisco, moving back and forth between her parents and her grandmother.

She was smart and fresh to the point of danger, packed off by her family to California after sassing a white store clerk in Arkansas. Other times, she didn't speak at all: At age 7, she was raped by her mother's boyfriend and didn't speak for years. She learned by reading, and listening.

'I loved the poetry that was sung in the black church: "Go down Moses, way down in Egypt's land,"; she told the AP.