The Collected Autobiographies of Maya Angelou

by Maya Angelou

  Mburumba Kerina, of the South-West Africa People’s Organization, was his friend and lived in Brooklyn. I would call and Jane, Kerina’s black American wife, would answer.

  “Hi, Jane. It’s Maya.”

  “Oh hello, Maya. How are things?”

  “O.K. and with you?”

  “Oh nothing. And with you?”

  “Nothing.” Then she would shatter my hopes that my husband was at her house. “How is Vus?”

  “Oh fine. And Mburumba?”

  “Just fine. We ought to get together soon.”

  “Yes, very soon. Well, take care.”

  “You too. Bye.”

  “Bye.”

  Jane never knew how I envied her unusual assurance. She was younger than I and had been working as a guide at the U.N. when she met Kerina. They fell in love and married, and she settled into the nervous life of a freedom fighter’s wife as coolly as if she had married the minister of a small-town Baptist church.

  When I found Vus after numerous phone calls, I gave reasons contrived for my interruptions.

  “Let’s go to dinner after the play.”

  “Let’s go straight home after the play.”

  “Let’s go to a bar after the play.”

  Vus was a master of intrigue, so I suppose that I never fooled him with my amateur cunning, but he was simply generous enough to pretend. One afternoon I answered the telephone and was thumped into a fear and subsequent rage so dense that I was made temporarily deaf.

  “Hello, Maya Make?” Shreds of a Southern accent still hung in the white woman’s voice.

  “Yes? Maya Make speaking.” I thought the woman was probably a journalist or a theater critic, wanting an interview from Maya Angelou Make, the actress.

  “I’m calling about Guy.” My mind shifted quickly from a pleasant anticipation to apprehension.

  “Are you from his school? What is the matter?”

  “No, I’m at Mid-town Hospital. I’m sorry but there’s been a serious accident. We’d like you to come right away. Emergency ward.”

  She hung up. I grabbed my purse and the keys, slammed the door, raced down the stairs and was standing on the pavement before I realized I didn’t know the address of the hospital. Fortunately, a taxi had stopped by a traffic light. I ran over and asked the driver if he knew where the Mid-town Hospital was located. He nodded and I got into the cab and said, “Please hurry. It’s my son.”

  My watch said it was eleven, so Guy was in school and couldn’t have been hurt in a traffic accident. Maybe there had been a gang fight. The cabbie cut in front of cars, causing other drivers to honk their horns and screech their tires, but it seemed that time and the taxi were crawling.

  I paid with bills I never saw and ran through the doors of the Emergency entrance. A young black nurse at the desk looked at me wearily.

  “Yes?”

  I told her that my son had been hurt, and I wanted to know how badly, and where was he and could I see him? I told her his name, and she began to run her finger down a list. She continued examining the next page. She didn’t find Guy’s name. I told her I had received a phone call. She said they had not admitted a Guy Johnson and was I sure of the hospital? I heard the caller’s voice. “I’m at Mid-town Hospital …”

  She was lying. She was in the South African service. The thoughts slammed into my consciousness like blows to the heart. For the first time since I heard “I’m calling about Guy” I became aware of thinking.

  I went to a pay phone and called Guy’s school. After a few minutes I learned that he was in history class.

  I walked up Central Park West toward the apartment, too angry to savor relief. I thought of the greedy immorals who lay claim to a people’s land by force, and denied the existence of other human beings because of their color. I had opposed the racist regime on principle because it was ugly, violent, debasing and murderous. My husband had his own reasons for trying to bring down the government of Verwoerd and I had supported him. But as I walked under the green trees, and smelled the aroma of young summer flowers, I felt a spasm of hate constrict my throat and tighten my chest. To break a mother’s heart for no gain was the most squalid act I could imagine. My defiance from now on would be personal.

  —

  Ethel Ayler had a co-starring role in a new Broadway play, so she was leaving The Blacks. We talked backstage on her last night.

  Ethel said, “Maya, Sidney ought to pay us something for our music.” I agreed.

  We had tried to squeeze money out of the producer on three or four occasions, but each time we mentioned being paid for composing the two songs, he had laughed and invited us to lunch or dinner. Now when Ethel was closing we decided to make a last attempt. We changed clothes quickly and rushed into the lobby, where we saw Sidney Bernstein standing alone.

  Ethel and I walked over to him. Ethel said, “Sidney, you know this was my last night. I start rehearsing Kwamina tomorrow.”

  Sidney turned and gave Ethel an insipid little smile, “Yeah, Ethel, congratulations. I hope it’ll be a hit.”

  I said, “So does she, Sidney. But we want to talk to you about money. You have to pay us something for composing the music for this show.”

  He raised his chin and looked in my face. He didn’t even try to dilute his scorn.

  “Get off my back, will you? You didn’t compose anything. I saw you. You just sat down at the piano and made up something.”

  Ethel and I stared at him, then at each other. The people Sidney had been waiting for arrived, collected him and, laughing, walked down the stairs.

  I saw Ethel control her features. She closed her lips and made her eyes vacant. When she shrugged her shoulders I thought I knew what she was going to say.

  “He’s a fool, Maya. Forget him.” I had anticipated correctly. She held her cosmetic case delicately in her left and waved at me elegantly with her right. “Take it easy, Maya. Let’s keep in touch.” She walked away. A Broadway success was her future, so she could ignore Sidney Bernstein’s unfairness. However, I couldn’t. And the statement that I had composed nothing, I had simply sat down at the piano and made the music up, clogged the movement of my brain.

  Vus and James Baldwin were waiting at the bottom of the stairs, so I dropped the befuddlement on them.

  What did it mean? The stupid bastard was of a piece with the other arrogant thieves who took the work of black artists without even threatening them with drawn pistols. I wasn’t locked into The Blacks.

  Vus still paid most of the bills, so I wasn’t dependent on the job, and since I had no theatrical ambition I didn’t have to be afraid that the producers would bad-mouth me off and on Broadway. Vus and Jim stayed quiet.

  Vus took my shoulders in his hands and pressed his thumbs into the soft muscles at the joint of my arms. The pain made me forget about Sidney Bernstein, Ethel Ayler, the music and The Blacks. I stopped crying and he released me.

  “My dear. You will never return to this theater. You have just closed.”

  I looked at Jim Baldwin. Vus’s statement was as shocking as Bernstein’s rejection. I knew that Jim would understand that I couldn’t simply not return to the theater. He would explain that as a member of Equity, the theatrical union, I was obliged to give at least two weeks’ notice. Jim was silent. Although we three stood in arm’s reach of each other, he watched Vus and me as if we were screen actors and he was sitting apart in a distant auditorium.

  I said, “I can’t close without giving notice. My union will have me up on charges. Bernstein can sue me …”

  Vus walked away to the pavement’s edge and hailed a taxi. I whispered to Jim, “Tell him I can’t do that. Please explain. He doesn’t understand.”

  Jim grinned, his big eyes flashing with enjoyment. “He understands, Maya. He understands more about what Bernstein has done than you. Don’t worry, you’ll be all right.”

  We crowded into the back seat of the cab. Vus leaned toward the driver.

  “Take us, please, to the nearest
Western Union office.”

  The driver hesitated for a few seconds, then started his motor and drove us to Broadway. On the ride, Vus and Jim leaned across me, agreeing on the bloody arrogance of white folks. It was ironic that the producer of a play which exposed white greed so eloquently could himself be such a glutton. Whether we were in the mines of South Africa, or the liberal New York theater, nothing changed. Whites wanted everything. They thought they deserved everything. That they wanted to possess all the materials of the earth was in itself disturbing, but that they also wanted to control the souls and the pride of people was inexplicable.

  We walked into the Western Union office. Jim and I stood talking while Vus filled out a form.

  He handed it to the telegraph operator. When the man finished copying the message, Vus paid and then, taking the form back, he walked over to us and read aloud: “Mrs. Maya Angelou Make will not be returning to The Blacks or the St. Mark’s Playhouse. She resists the exploitation of herself and her people. She has closed. Signed, Vusumzi Linda Make, Pan African Congress, Johannesburg, South Africa. Currently Petitioner at United Nations.”

  Vus continued. “That will be the last you will hear of those people, my dear. Unless Bernstein wants an international incident.”

  Jim laughed out loud. “See, Maya Angelou, I told you, you have nothing to worry about.”

  We walked out of the office, and linking arms, strolled into the nearest bar.

  The fat Xhosa, the thin New Yorker and the tall Southerner drank all night and exchanged unsurprising stories on the theme of white aggression and black vulnerability. And somehow we laughed.

  I sat beside the telephone the next day. The hangover and drama of leaving the show made me quick and ready to blast the ears of Bernstein, or Frankel or Glanville or anyone who would dare call me about Vus’s telegram. The telephone never rang.

  CHAPTER 14

  Black and white activists began to press hard on the nation’s conscience. In Monroe, North Carolina, Rob Williams was opposing a force of white hatred, and encouraged black men to arm and protect themselves and their homes and families. Mae Mallory, a friend from the U.N. protest, had joined Rob. Julian Mayfield, the author of The Big Hit and Grand Parade, wrote a stinging article on Williams’ position and then traveled South to lend his physical support. Stokely Carmichael and James Foreman founded a new group, Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, an offshoot of the Southern resistance organizations, and were taking the freedom struggle into hamlets and villages, where white hate was entrenched and black acceptance of inferior status a historic norm. Malcolm X continued to appear on national television. Newspapers were filled with reports of tributes to Martin Luther King and editorials honoring his nonviolent ideology. The white liberal population was growing. White students joined black students in Freedom Rides traveling on public conveyances to Southern towns which were racist strongholds.

  Ralph Bunche was the U.S. ambassador to the U.N. and had received the Nobel Prize for his work as mediator in the Palestine conflict. When his son was denied membership in the all-white Forest Hills Tennis Club, Dr. Bunche made a statement which revealed his insight. The internationally respected representative, who had a complexion light-colored enough to allow him to pass for white, said, “I know now that until the lowliest Negro sharecropper in the South is free, I am not free.”

  Ossie Davis’ play Purlie Victorious opened on Broadway, and his wife Ruby Dee, as the petite Lutie Belle, had white audiences howling at their own ignorance and greed. Paule Marshall’s Soul Clap Hands and Sing was published, and readers were treated to well-written stories of black hope, despair and defeat. John Killens’ And Then We Heard the Thunder, exposed the irony of black soldiers fighting for a white country in a segregated army. Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time was an unrelenting warning that racism was not only homicidal but it was also suicidal. In Little Rock, Daisy Bates had led nine children into a segregated white high school and when the Arkansas governor, Orval Faubus, ordered local police to prevent the students’ entry, President Dwight Eisenhower sent federal troops to keep the peace.

  Harry Belafonte and Miriam Makeba were performing fund-raising concerts for the freedom struggle. Max and Abbey traveled around the country doing their “Freedom Now Suite.”

  Guy was totally occupied with school, SANE, Ethical Culture and girls. Vus traveled to and from East Africa, West Africa, London and Algeria, and I sat at home. I had no job and only the spending money Vus had left. My departure from the SCLC had been so hasty, I was embarrassed to go back and offer my services even as a volunteer. I was not a Muslim nor a student, so there was no place for me either in Malcolm X’s organization or in SNCC. I withdrew from my friends and even the Harlem Writers Guild.

  At last Vus returned from his latest extended trip. As usual, he brought gifts for me and Guy, and stories which had us tense with excitement and open-mouthed with admiration. My present was a blouse and an orange silk sari. He was delicate and assured when he wrapped the cloth around my hips and draped the end over my shoulders. I didn’t ask where or how he had learned the technique. I was becoming a good African wife.

  We walked into the lobby of the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel and the quiet was intimidating. Tuxedoed white men held the elbows of expensively dressed white women, and they made no noise as they glided over the carpeted floor. I held on to Vus’s arm and, dressed in my orange sari, stretched my head and neck upward until I added a few more inches to my six-foot frame. Vus had taught me a little Xhosa, and I spoke clearly and loudly in the click language. When we entered the elevator I felt all those white eyes on my back. I was an African in the bastion of white power, and my black King would protect me.

  The Sierra Leone’s ambassador’s suite was festive with brown- and black-colored people in African dress and the melodies of Ghanaian High Life music. Vus took me to the ambassador, who was standing with a group of women near the window.

  The ambassador saw Vus and beamed. “Ah, Mr. Make. Welcome. Ladies, I would like you to meet our revolutionary brother from South Africa, Vusumzi Make.” Vus smiled and bowed, the light catching his cheekbones, and causing his hair to glisten.

  He straightened up and spoke, “Your Excellency, I present my wife, Maya Angelou Make.”

  The ambassador took my hand. “She is beautiful, Make.” He also bowed. “Madam Make, we have heard of you in Africa. Mr. Make has done the continent a great service. Welcome.”

  I shook hands with the ambassador and each of the women and suddenly found the crowd had dispersed. I saw Vus near a table where a uniformed bartender mixed drinks. The ambassador was dancing with a pretty little woman in a very low-cut cocktail dress and I was left at the window. A roving waiter offered a tray of drinks. I chose a glass of wine and looked down on the lights of New York.

  Strange languages swirled around me, and the smell of a spice, known among Arkansas blacks as bird pepper, became strong in the room. I stopped the waiter and took a glass of Scotch from his tray. Vus had taken over from the ambassador and now he was dancing with the little sexy woman, holding her too close, gazing too deeply in her eyes. I found the waiter in a group of laughing guests, took another Scotch and went back to the window to drink and think.

  I had a fresh haircut and was wearing the prettiest outfit I owned. I could speak French and Spanish very well and could talk intelligently on a number of subjects. I knew national politics intimately and international subjects moderately well. I was married to a leading African freedom fighter and had daubed French perfume on my body, discreetly. Yet, no one talked to me. I had another drink.

  The lights on the street had begun to blur, but I could see clearly that Vus was still dancing with the woman. I would have known what to do if the party had been given by Afro-Americans, or even if there had been a few Afro-American guests. Or if the African guests had all been female. But Vus was successfully teaching me that there was a particular and absolute way for a woman to approach an African man. I only knew how a wife addr
essed an African husband. I didn’t know how to start a conversation with a male stranger, but I did know I was certainly getting drunk. If I could eat soon, I could stop the fast-moving effect effect of alcohol on my brain and body. I headed for the kitchen.

  I nearly collided with the ambassador. He backed away and smiled. “Madam Make, I hope you’re enjoying yourself.”

  I made myself smile. “Thank you, Your Excellency,” and continued.

  A black woman in a housedress was bent over, taking baking tins from the oven. When she straightened and saw me, she made her face and voice flat.

  “Can I help you, ma’am?” Her Southern accent was strong.

  “I just wanted a bite of something. Anything.”

  “Ma’am, they will be serving in a few minutes.”

  “Are you the ambassador’s wife?” My question might have sounded stupid, considering the way she was dressed. But I knew that sometimes the chores of party-giving could increase so that guests arrived before the last tasks were done and the hostess had the time to change.

  The woman laughed loudly. “Me? God, no. Madam Ambassador? Me?” She laughed, opening her mouth wide, her tongue wiggled. “No, ma’am. I am a Negro. I am the cook.” She turned back to the stove, her body shaking with glee. She muttered. “Me?”

  I waited until she turned to me again.

  “May I give you a hand? I am also a cook.” The laughter left her face as she examined me. Her gaze slid from my hair and gold earrings, to my necklace and dress and hands.