by Maya Angelou
“Miss Molly and y’all
I ain’t in that stuff at all
Y’alls happy in y’alls
Blue heaven.”
There was very little serious conversation. The times were so solemn and the daily news so somber that we snatched mirth from unlikely places and gave servings of it to one another with both hands.
The evening was full. I was on the street before I realized how much I had relaxed in the Feiffers’ home. I told Jimmy I was so glad to laugh.
Jimmy said, “We survived slavery. Think about that. Not because we were strong. The American Indians were strong, and they were on their own land. But they have not survived genocide. You know how we survived?”
I said nothing.
“We put surviving into our poems and into our songs. We put it into our folk tales. We danced surviving in Congo Square in New Orleans and put it in our pots when we cooked pinto beans. We wore surviving on our backs when we clothed ourselves in the colors of the rainbow. We were pulled down so low we could hardly lift our eyes, so we knew, if we wanted to survive, we had better lift our own spirits. So we laughed whenever we got the chance.
“Now, how does your spirit feel?”
I said, “Just fine, thank you.”
CHAPTER 31
They were from Northern California and looked the part. Jon wore a loose-knit tan sweater with leather elbow patches and tan pants. Verna, a small, neatly made woman, sat comfortably in a light-colored Chanel suit, and Steve wore black slacks and a black V-neck sweater over a white turtleneck shirt that filled in the V.
They had gotten my address from Enrico Banducci, who owned the Hungry I in San Francisco. Enrico and I liked each other, so we had kept in touch over oceans and continents.
“Ms. Angelou, we know you are a writer and, we are told, a very good one.”
“Yes.”
“Do you have anything published?”
I didn’t think it wise to say I had a short story published in Revolución, Cuba’s premier magazine.
I said, “Ah.” Then I added, “I have written some short essays that Ruby Dee and Ossie Davis read on a national radio station.”
“We’d be glad to see them.”
“Yes, they could tell us a lot about your style.”
“When I heard you were looking for a writer, I put a few in my attaché case.” I had borrowed the attaché case from Sam Floyd. “Please tell me what kind of writer are you looking for.”
Jon leaned back and said, “We think it’s past time for our station to do some programs on African-American culture and history. We were told that you have lived in Africa, and you might be the very person to bring it together for us.”
Steve said, “We need an insider’s view.” Well, I certainly was inside.
“I am writing a play now, but I do have some ideas for a documentary.”
“Would the subject of African-American culture be of interest to you?” Steve asked.
“Of course!”
Steve flinched. I did not intend to speak so abruptly, but the question was so inane it caught me off guard.
“Of course,” I said more softly. “In fact, in Ghana I was struck by how much of what I thought was Afro-American culture really had its origin in Africa. Now I know I should have anticipated that, but I did not.”
Jon asked, “Do you think you have enough material?”
“How long do you want the program?”
“No, no,” Verna said, “not a program, we want a series. Ten one-hour programs. Can you do that?”
“Certainly. Surely. I just misunderstood. Ten one-hour programs?” I wondered if there was that much material in the whole world. “Yes. I can do that.”
“We will be seeing other writers, but who is your agent?”
Would they even consider me if I admitted I had no agent?
“I have a manager. He acts as my agent.” Having a manager might make me seem an important writer. “I’ll give you his address and telephone number.”
I wrote down Jerry Purcell’s phone number. “He’s away today, but I’m sure you can reach him tomorrow at this number.”
I needed the day to find Jerry before they talked to him. I had to tell him that he was my manager.
For over an hour we talked about San Francisco and the state of the Broadway stage and PBS in general and their station KQED in particular and the United States and Africa. That was the kind of conversation I liked to have, rambling, tumbling, wandering off from one subject onto another.
Their humor pleased me. I forgot where I was and why I was there. When they stood, I remembered and immediately wondered if I had talked too much and overstayed my welcome. We shook hands all around, and Jon said, “We will speak to your manager, and you will hear from us before the week is out.”
Yes, I did like them, and I hoped they liked me.
Three days later Jerry telephoned. “I got good money for you, so you’ll be going out to San Francisco.”
I whooped all the way to the library.
With time and a kindly librarian, any unskilled person can learn how to build a replica of the Taj Mahal. I pored over books about television documentaries. I read instructions on how to write television plays and accounts of producing and directing television.
I studied hard and memorized phrases and words I had never used. Boom and speed and camera angle, tripod and seconds and reverses. After a week I had an enlarged vocabulary. When I wasn’t reading about television, I was writing for television.
I thought that I would learn on the job, but I would learn quicker and more easily if I had some of the language.
I designed a series called Blacks. Blues. Black. We were blacks in Africa before we were brought to America as slaves, where we created the blues, and now we were painfully and proudly returning to being upstanding free blacks again.
The program would show African culture’s impact on the West. As host, I would introduce the lyricism of poetry and the imagery of prose. In one program I would have B. B. King playing blues and church choirs singing spirituals and gospel songs. There would be African, African-American and modern ballet dance, and I would point out their similarities. The art of African sculpture would be shown as the source and resource of many Western artists’ creativity. I would place Fan, Ashanti and Dogon masks alongside the works of Picasso, Klee, Modigliani and Rouault.
It was thrilling to think of returning to San Francisco, with something to do and the faith that I would do a good job.
CHAPTER 32
I was so excited that the telephone call hardly penetrated.
“My name is Robert Loomis, and I am an editor at Random House. Judy Feiffer spoke of you. She said you told wonderful stories.”
“How nice of her. James Baldwin and her husband told the best.”
“I am calling to ask if you’d like to write an autobiography.”
I said, “No, thank you. I am a poet and playwright.”
He asked, “Are you sure?”
“Yes, quite. In fact, I’m leaving in a few days to write and host a television series for PBS in San Francisco. I’ll be there for a month or more.”
“May I have a California number for you?”
I gave him Aunt Lottie’s San Francisco telephone number and my mother’s number in Stockton, California, where she had moved.
“I’m pretty certain that I will not write an autobiography. I didn’t celebrate it, but I have only had my fortieth birthday this year. Maybe in ten or twenty years.” We both laughed and said good-bye.
In San Francisco I collected dancers and singers and musicians and comedians. I went to churches and synagogues and community centers. On the day of the first shoot, Bob Loomis telephoned again.
“Miss Angelou, I’m calling to see if you’ve had a change of mind, if you are certain that you don’t want to write an autobiography for Random House.”
I said, “Mr. Loomis, I am sure that I cannot write an autobiography. I am up to my lower jaw in thi
s television series. When I come back to New York, I’d like to talk to you about a book of poetry.”
He said, “Fine,” but there was no eagerness in his voice. “Good luck to you.”
—
In San Francisco I was pleased that all the pieces were falling into their proper places. The ministers I approached were agreeable, the choir conductors were talented and willing. I borrowed an entire collection of Makonde sculpture from Bishop Trevor Hoy at the Pacific School of Religion and church officials allowed me to film their services. I took television crews into elementary schools and people’s private homes.
Blacks. Blues. Black was well received. The Sun Times, the local black newspaper, gave it a rousing review. Rosa Guy and Dolly came out for the premiere.
People who had looked askance when I began the series were now standing in line to participate. Schools had adopted the programs, and I was told that some preachers were using my subjects as topics for their sermons in San Francisco.
On my last day, Robert Loomis called again. I have always been sure that he spoke to James Baldwin. He said, “Miss Angelou, Robert Loomis. I won’t bother you again. And I must say, you may be right not to attempt an autobiography, because it is nearly impossible to write autobiography as literature. Almost impossible.”
I didn’t think. I didn’t have to. I said, “Well, maybe I will try it. I don’t know how it will turn out, but I can try.”
Grandmother Henderson’s voice was in my ear: “Nothing beats a trial but a failure.”
“Well, if you’d like to write forty or fifty pages and send them to me, we can see if I can get a contract for you. When do you think you can start?”
I said, “I’ll start tomorrow.”
CHAPTER 33
Rosa and Dolly and I traveled to Stockton to spend a last weekend with my mother before returning to New York.
She cooked and laughed and drank and told stories and generally pranced around her pretty house, proud of me, proud of herself, proud of Dolly and Rosa.
She said black women are so special. Few men of any color and even fewer white women can deal with how fabulous we are.
“Girls, I’m proud of you.”
In the early morning, I took my yellow pad and ballpoint pen and sat down at my mother’s kitchen table.
I thought about black women and wondered how we got to be the way we were. In our country, white men were always in superior positions; after them came white women, then black men, then black women, who were historically on the bottom stratum.
How did it happen that we could nurse a nation of strangers, be maids to multitudes of people who scorned us, and still walk with some majesty and stand with a degree of pride?
I thought of human beings, as far back as I had read, of our deeds and didoes. According to some scientists, we were born to forever crawl in swamps, but for some not yet explained reason, we decided to stand erect and, despite gravity’s pull and push, to remain standing. We, carnivorous beings, decided not to eat our brothers and sisters but to try to respect them. And further, to try to love them.
Some of us loved the martial songs, red blood flowing and the screams of the dying on battlefields.
And some naturally bellicose creatures decided to lay down our swords and shields and to try to study war no more.
Some of us heard the singing of angels, harmonies in a heavenly choir, or at least the music of the spheres.
We had come so far from where we started, and weren’t nearly approaching where we had to be, but we were on the road to becoming better.
I thought if I wrote a book, I would have to examine the quality in the human spirit that continues to rise despite the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.
Rise out of physical pain and the psychological cruelties.
Rise from being victims of rape and abuse and abandonment to the determination to be no victim of any kind.
Rise and be prepared to move on and ever on.
I remembered a children’s poem from my mute days in Arkansas that seemed to say however low you perceive me now, I am headed for higher ground.
I wrote the first line in the book, which would become I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.
“What you looking at me for. I didn’t come to stay.”
THE MODERN LIBRARY EDITORIAL BOARD
Maya Angelou
•
A. S. Byatt
•
Caleb Carr
•
Christopher Cerf
•
Ron Chernow
•
Shelby Foote
•
Charles Frazier
•
Vartan Gregorian
•
Richard Howard
•
Charles Johnson
•
Jon Krakauer
•
Edmund Morris
•
Azar Nafisi
•
Joyce Carol Oates
•
Elaine Pagels
•
John Richardson
•
Salman Rushdie
•
Oliver Sacks
•
Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.
•
Carolyn See
•
William Styron
•
Gore Vidal
This collection gratefully acknowledges the gifts of all
of my ancestors. It is dedicated to my great-grandchildren,
CAYLIN NICOLE JOHNSON
and
BRANDON BAILEY JOHNSON.
ALSO BY MAYA ANGELOU
ESSAYS
Wouldn’t Take Nothing for My Journey Now
Even the Stars Look Lonesome
POETRY
Just Give Me a Cool Drink of Water ’Fore I Diiie
Oh Pray My Wings Are Gonna Fit Me Well
And Still I Rise
Shaker, Why Don’t You Sing?
I Shall Not Be Moved
On the Pulse of Morning
Phenomenal Woman
The Complete Collected Poems of Maya Angelou
A Brave and Startling Truth
CHILDREN’S BOOKS
My Painted House, My Friendly Chicken, and Me
Kofi and His Magic
PICTURE BOOKS
Now Sheba Sings the Song
Life Doesn’t Frighten Me
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Poet, writer, performer, teacher, and director MAYA ANGELOU was raised in Stamps, Arkansas, and later moved to San Francisco. In addition to her bestselling autobiographies, beginning with I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, she has also written five poetry collections, including I Shall Not Be Moved and Shaker, Why Don’t You Sing?, as well as the celebrated poem “On the Pulse of Morning,” which she read at the inauguration of President William Jefferson Clinton, and “A Brave and Startling Truth,” written at the request of the United Nations and read at its fiftieth anniversary. She lives in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
PERMISSIONS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Grateful acknowledgment is made to the following for permission to reprint previously published material:
Chappell & Co. Inc.: Eight lines from “Street Song” by George Gershwin and three lines from “There’s a Boat Dat’s Leavin’ Soon for New York” by George Gershwin, copyright © 1935 by Gershwin Publishing Corp. Copyright renewed. All rights reserved. International copyright secured. Reprinted by permission.
Harper & Roto Publishers, Inc.: Excerpt from “For a Lady I Know” from On These I Standby Countee Cullen, copyright © 1925 by Harper & Row Publishers, Inc., and copyright renewed 1953 by Ida M. Cullen. Reprinted by permission.
MCA Music, a division of MCA, Inc.: Excerpt from “If You’re a Viper” by Rosetta Howard, Horace Malcolm, and Herbert Moran, copyright © 1938 by MCA Music, a division of MCA, Inc. Copyright renewed and assigned to MCA Music, a division of MCA, Inc. All rights reserved
. Reprinted by permission.
Northern Music Company.-lLxcer’pt from “Stone Cold Dead in the Market (He Had It Coming),” words and music by Wilmoth Houdini. Copyright © 1945, 1946 by Northern Music Company. All rights reserved. Reprinted by permission.