As someone who has studied the works of numerous African-American and American writers, and now teaching these works at the University of Botswana, I thought I should add my voice to scores of people around the globe who mourned the passing on of Maya Angelou on May 28, 2014 at her home in Winston-Salem. Maya Angelou was born, Marguerite Annie Johnson on April 4, 1928, in St. Louis Missouri.
Her parents divorced when she was three and was sent with her brother Bailey to live with her grandmother in Stamps, Arkansas. At seven years while visiting her mother in Chicago, her mother’s boyfriend raped her. She testified against the rapist and her uncles were enraged and murdered the mother’s boyfriend. As a child, Maya Angelou felt bad that her word had led the uncles to murder the rapist and was traumatized to an extent that she was silent for five years. She only began to speak again at the age of thirteen. It is this silence that Maya Angelou would later allude to in I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. In addition, she became a teenage mother by the age of 16, but did not allow all these challenges to stop her from following her dreams. She was a Civil Rights activist and a very close friend of Martin Luther King, to the extent that she stopped celebrating her birthday because the date coincided with King’s assassination on April 4, 1968. In Africa her closest political ally later in her life was Nelson Mandela. When Mandela died she wrote, “No sun outlasts its sunset, but will rise again and bring the dawn”. Maya Angelou is an acclaimed:
author, actress, screen-writer, dancer and a poet. Most of her works are taught in African American literature courses as well as in Women Studies courses around the world. Maya Angelou lives behind a legacy that cannot be contained in the following pages. She was an acclaimed author, actress, screen writer, poet, dancer, journalist, essayist, public speaker, and an inspiration to a lot of people. The list of her published works includes more than 30 titles. In this piece I would briefly highlight some of her writings, which I have taught especially at the University of Botswana.
To my students, at the University of Botswana, especially those I taught in first year, one of the poems that I have heard them quote following their graduation is Angelou’s “Phenomenal Woman”, which has also become a battle-cry for feminists inside and outside of the academy. Maya Angelou was indeed a phenomenal woman, as the following lines from her poem by the same title illustrate, Pretty women wonder where my secret lies. I’m not cute or built to suit a fashion model’s size But when I start to tell them, They think I’m telling lies. I say, It’s in the reach of my arms The span of my hips, The stride of my step, The curl of my lips. I’m a woman Phenomenally. Phenomenal woman, That’s me.
Maya Angelou used her poetry to argue against racial stereotypes, especially mainstream rhetoric of “true womanhood” which is based on Euro-centric notions of beauty. In everyday life, Maya Angelou embraced her African identity through her style, from her hair to the head wraps and the African garbs she often dressed in the bright colors and styles of Ghana where she had learned Fanti. Another country where she spent considerable time as a journalist is Egypt. Like W.E. B. Du Bois, Maya Angelou was one of the African-American Pan-Africanists who had re-located to Ghana in the 60’s. Du Bois died and requested to be buried in Ghana, while Maya relocated to the U.S. in 1964.
Not only was she a phenomenal woman, in terms of her looks as a tall beautiful African woman, but she will also be remembered for her indomitable spirit, as she never allowed the past to hold her back. Her poem “Still I Rise” speaks to this aspect of her life, as well as the resilience of many enslaved Africans who were taken from Africa to go and work in the plantations in America. You may write me down in history With your bitter, twisted lies, You may tread me in the very dirt But still, like dust, I’ll rise. ..Out of the huts of history’s shame I rise Up from a past that’s rooted in pain I rise I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide, Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear I rise Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave, I am the dream and the hope of the slave. I rise I rise I rise. By sharing her life stories, through poetry and other genres, Maya Angelou gave hope to African-Americans in particular who were numbed by Jim Crow laws of the South. Having lived in the South and experienced racism first-hand, she could address debates about racial superiority and inferiority by insisting that her ancestors were never sub-human and were as intelligent as their white counterparts. As an African-American, her poetry did not only focus on the Blacks’ realities in the Americas, but also served as a clarion call for the promotion of racial diversity in America. Her poem, recited at Bill Clinton’s inauguration, as the 42nd President of the U.S. in 1993, was a masterpiece which reverberated beyond America. Across the wall of the world, A River sings a beautiful song. It says, Come rest here by my side.
Come, Clad in peace and I will sing the songs The Creator gave to me when I and the Tree and the rock were one. However, it was not her poetry that led to her meteoric rise in the American literary landscape, but her collection of stories, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, which earned her global recognition. This collection is a recollection of Maya Angelou’s childhood experiences although she wrote it when she was in her 40’s after some encouragement from one of her friends from the Harlem Renaissance, James Baldwin. For the first time, in American history a Black Woman went beyond race to unpack some of the atrocities such as incest that were taking place within black communities as well as issues of self-loathing among Southern black girls. Throughout her speeches and writings Angelou focused on the themes of personal identity and resilience. She sums this in the prologue, when she writes, “If growing up is painful for the Southern Black girl, being aware of her displacement is the rust on the razor that threatens the throat…it is an unnecessary insult” (Prologue). The book came out the same year as Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye (1970) followed by Alice Walker’s The Color Purple (1982).
What these three feminists’ texts have in common is that they broke the silence on; incest, rape and gender-based violence in black communities in the U.S. To date, the metaphor of a “caged bird” resonates with a lot of women’s experiences both in Africa and the African Diaspora. Maya Angelou was passionate about feminist issues around the world, especially in Africa, where she spent a considerable part of her life. Maya Angelou in her own words, believed life has to be lived to the fullest as captured in this quote. “My mission in life is not merely to survive, but to thrive; and to do so with some passion, some compassion, some humor, and some style” She also insisted that love should start with one loving oneself. “I don’t trust people who don’t love themselves and tell me “I love you”.There is an African saying which is: Be careful when a naked person offers you a shirt” May her soul rest in peace as other “caged birds” start to break the silence about gender based violence across the world. This is what great writers do; she spoke for herself, while speaking for others in similar situations. The world has lost a literary giant but her legacy lives on. Dr.Dikobe is a feminist and a gender scholar. She teaches literature and the expressive arts of Africa and the African Diaspora in the English Department at the University of Botswana.
