By Elliott West
“You may write me down in history, With your bitter, twisted lies, You may tread me in the very dirty but still, like dust, I’ll rise.”
Maya Angelou
Introduction
On International Women’s Day, a day that was created to celebrate the outstanding contribution women have brought to society, I would like to highlight the life of Maya Angelou. A lady whose legacy is a breath of fresh air in history as a writer, poet and civil rights activist. A true beyond-all-the-odds story where bravery and tragedy work in tandem. A life that makes many others look very ordinary and will make you shed tears of despair and joy on her life journey. Experiences that reveal how time may have made advances but some of the cruel aspects of life are just as relevant now as they were then.
The Deep South
Born in St Louis, Missouri in 1928, Marguerite Annie Johnson was the daughter of Bailey, a doorman and Vivian, a nurse and card dealer. Yet this wasn’t to be a happy childhood. When Angelou as she came to be known, was only 3 years old, her parents’ marriage came to a bitter end and she was sent with her elder brother to live with her paternal grandmother, Annie Henderson in Stamps, Arkansas. A train journey that travelled alone and unaccompanied. Yet it would be a blessing in disguise as Annie was a wealthy woman. Someone who owned a general store and supplied much-needed provisions during the Great Depression and World War I.
However, this family bliss would be short-lived as their father came to collect his children unannounced when Angelou was seven. He took them and returned them to their mother’s care. By this time her mother had a new boyfriend called Freeman. He subsequently sexually abused and raped Anjelou. Petrified, she told her brother and he told the rest of the family. Freeman was found guilty and jailed. However, he was released after one day. Four days later he was murdered, probably by Angelou’s uncles. It was a horrific experience that caused Angelou to become mute for the next four years. A time when she fell in love with literature and soaked up the comings and goings of the world around her.
The Voice
Shortly after the murder, the two were sent back to live with their grandmother. Back in Stamps, she attended Lafayette County Training School. Here she was taught by Mrs Bertha Flowers, a family friend, who helped her to speak again. Flowers encouraged to read classic poetry and literature, Dickens, Shakespeare and Edgar Allan Poe. Also Black artists such as Frances Harper, Anne Spencer and Jessie Faucet. Authors who would affect her life and career. Her teacher believed that you didn’t love poetry until you speak it.
When Angelou was 14, she moved with her brother back to her mother’s house, now living in Oakland, California. During World War II, she attended the California Labour School and at the age of 16 became the first Black female streetcar conductor in San Francisco. She described this as her dream job, loving the uniform. Her mother encouraged her to work hard and to arrive at work early every day. It paid off because in 2014 she was awarded a lifetime achievement award from the Conference of Minority Transportation Officials. Three weeks after completing her education, Angelou at the age of 17, gave birth to her son Clyde.
1951-1961
Angelou married Tosh Angelos, a Greek electrician and former sailor in 1951. A marriage that was disapproved by her mother and at a time when interracial relationships were frowned upon. An aspiring musician who got her into dancing and she started modern dance classes. Here she met dancers and choreographers. Angelou performed in fraternal Black organisations across San Francisco. A time that she loved but with little success. The couple then moved with their son to New York where she studied African dance with a Trinidadian dancer, Pearl Primus but they moved back to San Francisco a year later.
In 1954, their marriage broke down and she went on to dance professionally in clubs across San Francisco. This included the nightclub, The Purple Onion, performing Calypso dances under the name of Maya Angelou. She toured Europe in 1954 and 1955 in the opera Porgy and Bess and learnt every language of the countries she visited, becoming proficient in some. In 1957 she recorded her first album, Miss Calypso. She also appeared in a Broadway show and appeared in the 1957 film Calypso Heat Wave in which sang and performed her compositions.
In 1959, Angelou joined the Harlem Writers Guild. A society where she met many African American authors including Rosa Guy and Julian Mayfield. In 1960 she met Martin Luther King Jr. and was inspired by his speeches. Subsequently, she organised the Cabaret for Freedom to benefit the South Christian Leadership Conference and became a key fundraiser for the civil rights movement. Angelou was pro-Castro and anti-apartheid.
1961-1969
In 1961, Angelou appeared in Jean Genet’s play, The Blacks, playing the part of the Queen. In 1961, she met a South African freedom fighter, Vusumzi Make, and they fell in love but never married. They moved to Egypt and she became an associate editor of the English-language newspaper The Arab Observer but her relationship with Make ended in 1962. After the split, she moved with her son to Accra, Ghana. She attended college but was seriously injured in a car accident. She remained in Accra until she recovered, leaving in 1965. She then became an administrator at the University of Ghana and was active in the African American expatriate community. A feature writer for the Ghanaian Times, she also performed for Ghana’s National Theatre, reviving her role in The Blacks in Geneva and Berlin. In Accra, she met Malcolm X and returned with him to the USA in 1965 to help him build a new civil rights organisation, the Organisation of Afro-American Unity. Malcolm X was assassinated shortly afterwards.
Devastated by his death, she moved to Hawaii to be with her brother. Here she resumed her singing career. She then moved back to Los Angeles to concentrate on her writing career. Working as a market researcher in Watts, she witnessed the riots in 1965. She acted and wrote plays and in 1967 returned to New York. Here she met her lifelong friend Rosa Guy and renewed her friendship with James Baldwin whom she had met in Paris in the 1950s. In 1968, Martin Luther King Jr. asked her to organise a march. She cancelled at the last moment and King was subsequently assassinated. In this time of mourning, she wrote her first autobiography, I Know Why the Caged Birds Sing to much acclaim.
Later Years
In 1972, Angelou’s Georgia Georgia was made into a film by a Swedish film company. The first screenplay by a Black woman. She also wrote the soundtrack. She married Paul de Feu in San Francisco in 1973, a Welsh carpenter and ex-husband of the feminist writer Germaine Greer. Over the next ten years, Angelou worked as a composer, writing for Roberta Flack and composing many movie scores. She wrote articles, short stories, TV scripts, documentaries, autobiographies and poetry. A visiting professor at several universities and colleges. She was also nominated for a Tony Award in 1973 for her role in Look Away.
In 1973, Angelou appeared in a supporting role in the iconic television programme Roots. Through this, she would become a lifelong friend of Oprah Winfrey. A lady who became her mentor. In 1981 she divorced du Feu. An era where she received more than thirty honorary degrees from universities and colleges. She returned to the Southern United States in 1981 and accepted a lifelong Professorship of American Studies at Wake Forest University. A place where she was accused of being more of a celebrity than an academic. However, she continued to teach here until 2014.
In 1993, Angelou recited her poem “On the Pulse of Morning” at the presidential inauguration of Bill Clinton and in 1995 she delivered “A Brave and Startling Truth” which commemorated the 50th anniversary of the United Nations. She went on to direct the 1996 film Down in the Delta starring Wesley Snipes. She also completed her sixth autobiography Flung Up to Heaven in 2002. A campaigner for Hillary Clinton in the 2008 presidential primaries, she threw her support behind Barak Obama when he finished 29 points ahead of Clinton in the South Carolina primary. In 2010, she donated her papers and memorabilia to the Schomburg Centre for Research in Black Culture in Harlem. More than 340 boxes of documents and handwritten notes. In 2011, Angelou served as a consultant for the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial in Washington, D.C. and in 2013 published the seventh volume of her autobiography Mom & Me & Mom which told the story of her relationship with her mother. She died the following year at the age of 86.
