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Maya Angelou

Maya Angelou (born Marguerite Ann Johnson; April 4, 1928 – May 28, 2014) was an American author and poet. She published seven autobiographies, three books of essays, and several books of poetry, and is credited with a list of plays, movies, and television shows spanning more than fifty years. She received dozens of awards and over thirty honorary doctoral degrees. Angelou is best known for her series of seven autobiographies, which focus on her childhood and early adult experiences. The first, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969), tells of her life up to the age of seventeen, and brought her international recognition and acclaim. Angelou's long list of occupations has included pimp, prostitute, night-club dancer and performer, cast-member of the musical Porgy and Bess, coordinator for Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Southern Christian Leadership Conference, author, journalist in Egypt and Ghana during the days of decolonization, and actor, writer, director, and producer of plays, movies, and public television programs.

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Maya Angelou

Maya Angelou was a multitalented poet and author known for her acclaimed 1969 memoir, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings .

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Quick Facts

Life as an performer and activist, movie career, son and husbands, legacy: maya angelou quarter and more, who was maya angelou.

A multitalented writer and performer, Maya Angelou is best known for her work as an author and poet . Her 1969 memoir, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings , made literary history as the first nonfiction bestseller by a Black woman. Some of her famous poems include “Phenomenal Woman,” “Still I Rise,” and “On the Pulse of Morning,” which she recited at President Bill Clinton ’s inauguration in 1993 and which earned her a Grammy Award. Angelou also enjoyed a career as a Tony- and Emmy-nominated actor and singer in plays, musicals, and onscreen. She became the first Black woman to have a screenplay produced with the 1972 movie Georgia, Georgia . In her work as a civil rights activist , she collaborated with Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X , among others. The Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient died in May 2014 at age 86.

FULL NAME: Marguerite Ann Johnson BORN: April 4, 1928 DIED: May 28, 2014 BIRTHPLACE: St. Louis, Missouri SPOUSES: Tosh Angelos (c. 1949-1952), Vusumzi Make (c. 1961), and Paul Du Feu (c. 1973-1981) CHILD: Guy Johnson ASTROLOGICAL SIGN: Aries

Maya Angelou was born Marguerite Ann Johnson on April 4, 1928, in St. Louis.

She had a difficult childhood. Her parents split up when she was very young, and she and her older brother, Bailey, were sent to live with their paternal grandmother, Anne Henderson, in Stamps, Arkansas. Bailey gave Marguerite the nickname “Maya,” which she would adopt as her preferred name later in life.

As an African American, Angelou experienced firsthand racial prejudices and discrimination in Arkansas. She also suffered violence at home when she was around the age of 7. During a visit with her mother, Maya was raped by her mother’s boyfriend. As vengeance for the sexual assault, her uncles killed the boyfriend.

Young Maya was so traumatized by the experience that she stopped talking. She returned to Arkansas and spent about five years as a virtual mute.

A short-lived high school relationship resulted in Maya becoming pregnant. She was 16 years old whens he delivered her son, Guy Johnson, in 1944. After giving birth, she worked a number of jobs to support herself and her child.

Around this time, Maya moved to San Francisco and won a scholarship to study dance and acting at the California Labor School. She also became the first Black female cable car conductor, a job she held only briefly, in San Francisco.

In the mid-1950s, the world began to know Maya Angelou, her professional name adapted from her first husband’s last name, when her career as an actor and singer took off. She landed a role in a touring production of Porgy and Bess , later appearing in the off-Broadway production Calypso Heat Wave (1957) and releasing her first album, Miss Calypso (1957).

A member of the Harlem Writers Guild and a civil rights activist , Angelou organized and starred in the musical revue Cabaret for Freedom as a benefit for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, which Martin Luther King Jr. helped found before becoming its first president. Angelou also served as the SCLC’s northern coordinator and became a close to King.

In 1961, Angelou appeared in an off-Broadway production of Jean Genet’s The Blacks with James Earl Jones , Lou Gossett Jr., and Cicely Tyson . Afterward, the performer retreated from the theater scene for much of the 1960s. She lived abroad, first in Egypt and then in Ghana, and worked as an editor and a freelance writer. Angelou also held a position at the University of Ghana for a time.

In Ghana, she also joined a community of “Revolutionist Returnees” exploring pan-Africanism and became close with activist and Black nationalist leader Malcolm X . In 1964, upon returning to the United States, Angelou helped Malcolm X set up the Organization of Afro-American Unity, which disbanded after his assassination the following year.

Back in the United States, Angelou earned a Tony Award nomination for her role in the play Look Away (1973) and an Emmy Award nomination for her work on the television miniseries Roots (1977), among other honors.

Just Give Me a Cool Drink of Water ’fore I Diiie

Angelou published several collections of poetry, but her most famous was 1971’s collection Just Give Me a Cool Drink of Water ’fore I Diiie , which was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize.

Other famous collections of Angelou’s poetry include:

• Oh Pray My Wings Are Gonna Fit Me Well (1975), which includes Angelou’s poem “Alone,”
• And Still I Rise (1978), which features the beloved poem “Phenomenal Woman,”
• Shaker, Why Don’t You Sing? (1983),
• I Shall Not Be Moved (1990), featuring the poem “Human Family,” and
• Even the Stars Look Lonesome (1997).

Apple famously used a video of Angelou reading her poem “Human Family” in an advertisement at the 2016 Olympics.

“On the Pulse of Morning”

One of her most famous works, Angelou wrote the poem “On the Pulse of Morning” for President Bill Clinton ’s inaugural ceremony in January 1993. Her recitation at the ceremony marked the first inaugural poem reading since 1961, when Robert Frost delivered “The Gift Outright” at John F. Kennedy ’s inauguration. Angelou went on to win a Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album for the audio version of “On the Pulse of Morning.”

Other well-known poems by Angelou include “His Day Is Done,” a 1962 tribute poem Angelou wrote for Nelson Mandela as he made his secret journey from Africa to London, and “Amazing Peace,” which she wrote in 2005 for the White House tree-lighting ceremony.

In addition to her books of poetry, Angelou also wrote several memoirs and even cookbooks. She won two NAACP Image Awards in the Outstanding Literary Work (Nonfiction) category for her 2005 cookbook and 2008’s Letter to My Daughter .

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

Angelou’s friend and fellow writer James Baldwin urged her to write about her life experiences. The resulting work was the enormously successful 1969 memoir about her childhood and young adult years, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings .

The poignant story made literary history as the first nonfiction bestseller by a Black woman. The book, which made Angelou an international star, continues to be regarded as her most popular autobiographical work.

In 1995, Angelou was lauded for remaining on The New York Times ’ paperback nonfiction bestseller list for two years, the longest-running record in the chart’s history at the time.

Gather Together in My Name

Angelou’s follow-up to I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings , this 1974 memoir covers her life as an unemployed teenage mother in California, when she turned to narcotics and prostitution.

Singin’ and Swingin’ and Gettin’ Merry Like Christmas

Angelou wrote this autobiography, published in 1976, about her early career as a singer and actor.

The Heart of a Woman

Angelou crafted this 1981 memoir about leaving California with her son for New York, where she took part in the Civil Rights Movement .

All God’s Children Need Traveling Shoes

A lyrical exploration about what it means to be an African American in Africa, this autobiographical book was published in 1986 and covers the years Angelou spent living in Ghana.

Wouldn’t Take Nothing for My Journey Now

This inspirational essay collection from 1994 features Angelou’s insights about spirituality and living well.

A Song Flung Up to Heaven

Another autobiographical work, A Song Flung Up to Heaven (2002) explores Angelou’s return from Africa to the United States and her ensuing struggle to cope with the devastating assassinations of two human rights leaders with whom she worked: Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr .

King was killed on Angelou’s 40 th birthday, leading the author to stop celebrating her birthday for years afterward. She also sent flowers to King’s widow, Coretta Scott King , for more than 30 years, until Coretta’s death in 2006.

A Song Flung Up to Heaven ends as Angelou begins work on I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.

Letter to My Daughter

Dedicated to a daughter Angelou never had, this 2008 book of essays features Angelou’s advice for young women about living a life of meaning.

Mom & Me & Mom

In this 2013 memoir, Angelou discusses her complicated relationship with her mother who abandoned her during childhood.

Interested in health, Angelou’s published cookbooks include Hallelujah! The Welcome Table: A Lifetime of Memories With Recipes (2005) and Great Food, All Day Long (2010).

After publishing I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings , Angelou broke new ground artistically, educationally, and socially by writing the movie Georgia, Georgia (1972). The drama made her the first African American woman to have a screenplay produced.

In 1998, seeking new creative challenges, Angelou made her directorial debut with Down in the Delta , starring Alfre Woodard. Her work on the film was recognized with the Chicago International Film Festival’s 1998 Audience Choice Award and a nod from the Acapulco Black Film Festival in 1999.

Beginning in 1982, Angelou also returned to teaching at Wake Forest University in North Carolina. Over the years, she led a number of humanities courses, including “Race, Politics and Literature,” “African Culture and Impact on U.S.,” and “Race in the Southern Experience.” In 2011, Barack Obama awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

In 1944, Angelou gave birth to her son, Clyde Johnson, when she was 16 years old. Johnson followed in his mother’s footsteps to eventually become a poet known as Guy Johnson. He died in February 2022.

Angelou was often tight-lipped about her personal life, and details of her marriages and relationships have been inconsistent—even based on her own accounts. She is believed to have been married at least three times.

According to the National Women’s History Museum , Angelou wed Tosh Angelos, an electrician in the U.S. Navy, in 1949. She adopted a version of his surname and kept it through the rest of her life, despite the couple’s divorce in 1952.

In late 1960, Angelou met Vusumzi Make, a South African freedom fighter. The couple married in 1961, according to Stanford University’s Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute . They moved to Cairo with her son in 1962, but the marriage dissolved soon after.

Then in 1973, Angelou married carpenter Paul du Feu and lived with him in Berkeley, California, until their divorce in 1981.

After experiencing health issues for a number of years, Angelou died on May 28, 2014, at her home in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. She was 86 years old. A specific cause of death wasn’t given, but Angelou’s literary agent, Helen Brann, said that she had been “frail” and suffering from heart problems.

The news of her passing spread quickly with many people taking to social media to mourn and remember Angelou. Singer Mary J. Blige and politician Cory Booker were among those who tweeted their favorite quotes by her in tribute.

Then-President Barack Obama also issued a statement about Angelou, calling her “a brilliant writer, a fierce friend, and a truly phenomenal woman.” Angelou “had the ability to remind us that we are all God’s children; that we all have something to offer,” he wrote.

A memorial service for Angelou was held on June 7, 2014, at Wake Forest University, where she taught for about three decades. Among the attendees were her close friend Oprah Winfrey , former President Bill Clinton , then-First Lady Michelle Obama , and actor Cicely Tyson . BeBe Winans and Lee Ann Womack gave musical performances.

In November 2020, the San Francisco Arts Commission unanimously approved the recommendation for a sculpture honoring Angelou “in recognition of her many accomplishments, including breaking the color and gender barriers by becoming San Francisco’s first African-American female streetcar conductor, an award-winning author and poet, a Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient and a civil rights leader.”

The monument is in development by artist Lava Thomas and scheduled to be installed in fall 2024 outside the main branch of the San Francisco Library. The design is a book featuring Angelou’s likeness on one side and the title of her famous poem “Still I Rise” at the base.

Meanwhile, Angelou has become one of the historical figures featured on U.S. money . It was announced in May 2021 that she would be one of the first women commemorated with a new series of quarters from the U.S. Mint. The first shipments of the coin were made in January 2022.

The obverse, or heads, side of the coin depicts former President George Washington , with the reverse side showing Angelou with her arms uplifted. The bird in flight and rising sun behind her likeness are images inspired by her poetry and symbolic of the way she lived, according to the U.S. Mint .

The American Women Quarters Program has honored nine other women from 2022 through 2023, including astronaut Sally Ride , former Cherokee Nation chief Wilma Mankiller , former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt , and aviator Bessie Coleman . It is scheduled to continue through 2025.

• Courage is the most important of all virtues, because without courage, you cannot practice any of the other virtues consistently.
• I have found that among its other benefits, giving liberates the soul of the giver.
• The caged bird sings with a fearful trill / of things unknown but longed for still / and his tune is heard on the distant hill / for the caged birds sings of freedom.
• If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude.
• We may encounter many defeats, but we must not be defeated.
• I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.
• Words mean more than what is set down on paper. It takes the human voice to infuse them with deeper meaning.
• How important it is for us to recognize and celebrate our heroes and she-roes!
• To grow up is to stop putting blame on parents.
• We are only as blind as we want to be.
• The intensity with which young people live demands that they “black out” as often as possible.
• Home is a refuge, not only from my worries, my terrible concerns. I like beautiful things around me. I like to be beautiful because it delights my eyes and my soul is lifted up.
• You may not control the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them.
• When people show you who they are, believe them the first time.
• Let gratitude be the pillow upon which you kneel to say your nightly prayer. And let faith be the bridge you build to overcome evil and welcome good.
• If you get, give. If you learn, teach.
• In the flush of love’s light, we dare to be brave, and suddenly we see that love costs all we are and will ever be. Yet, it is only love which sets us free.
• I believe that each of us comes from the creator trailing wisps of glory.

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Maya Angelou on Home, Belonging, and (Not) Growing Up

By maria popova.

In the first essay, simply titled “Home,” Angelou offers this poignant lens on identity, growing up, and belonging.

She writes:

Thomas Wolfe warned in the title of America’s great novel that ‘You Can’t Go Home Again.’ I enjoyed the book but I never agreed with the title. I believe that one can never leave home. I believe that one carries the shadows, the dreams, the fears and dragons of home under one’s skin, at the extreme corners of one’s eyes and possibly in the gristle of the earlobe. Home is that youthful region where a child is the only real living inhabitant. Parents, siblings, and neighbors, are mysterious apparitions, who come, go, and do strange unfathomable things in and around the child, the region’s only enfranchised citizen. […] I am convinced that most people do not grow up. We find parking spaces and honor our credit cards. We marry and dare to have children and call that growing up. I think what we do is mostly grow old. We carry accumulation of years in our bodies and on our faces, but generally our real selves, the children inside, are still innocent and shy as magnolias. We may act sophisticated and worldly but I believe we feel safest when we go inside ourselves and find home, a place where we belong and maybe the only place we really do.

Letter to My Daughter is a superb read in its entirety. Complement it with Angelou on freedom and courage in the face of evil .

— Published August 16, 2012 — https://www.themarginalian.org/2012/08/16/maya-angelou-letter-to-my-daughter-home/ —

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Maya Angelou summary

Discover the life of maya angelou and some of her major works.

Maya Angelou , orig. Marguerite Johnson , (born April 4, 1928, St. Louis, Mo., U.S.—died May 28, 2014, Winston-Salem, N.C.), U.S. poet. She was raped at age eight and went through a period of muteness. Her autobiographical works, which explore themes of economic, racial, and sexual oppression, include I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1970), The Heart of a Woman (1981), and All God’s Children Need Traveling Shoes (1986). Her poetry collections include Just Give Me a Cool Drink of Water ’fore I Diiie (1971), And Still I Rise (1978), and I Shall Not Be Moved (1990). Her recitation of a poem she wrote for Bill Clinton ’s first inauguration (1993) brought her widespread fame. In 2002 she published her sixth volume of memoirs, A Song Flung Up to Heaven . In 2011 she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

A Summary and Analysis of Maya Angelou’s ‘Still I Rise’

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

‘Still I Rise’ is a poem by the American poet Maya Angelou (1928-2014), published in her 1978 collection And Still I Rise . A kind of protest poem which is defiant as well as celebratory, ‘Still I Rise’ is about the power of the human spirit to overcome discrimination and hardship, with Angelou specifically reflecting her attitudes as a black American woman.

You can read ‘Still I Rise’ here .

‘Still I Rise’: summary

Beginning with a pointed and direct reference to ‘you’, Angelou opens her poem with a neat piece of wordplay: ‘write down in history’ means both ‘write down the history of me and my people’ but also ‘write me down, i.e., downplay me and my achievements by lying about me’. Although people may seek to belittle her and other African-Americans, Angelou asserts that, even if she is trodden into the dirt, like the dust rising from someone’s boot, she, too, will rise and will not be defeated.

In the second stanza, Angelou poses a direct question. Is her sexuality, her confidence in herself and her own attractiveness, upsetting? She walks with confidence, as if she is as rich as an oil baron. And (moving to the third stanza) like the sun and the moon which rise every day and night, and like our hopes for a brighter future which persist despite hard times, she will continue to rise, too.

The moon image suggests the tides of the sea (which are a result of the moon’s gravitational pull on the earth’s seas), which also go out but come in again, as regular and dependable as the sunrise and sunset every day.

In the fourth stanza, more questions follow: Angelou accuses her addressee of wanting to see her spirit broken. But in the fifth stanza, she asserts her ‘haughtiness’: she holds her head high, rather than bowing it in submission or defeat. She laughs with the confidence and self-assurance of someone who is rich beyond their wildest dreams, with gold mines in their back yard.

The sixth stanza sees Angelou asserting her defiance: cruel words and unkind looks, and ‘hatefulness’ (a word which flickers with the dual meaning of both ‘detestable attitudes’ and ‘hatred for others’), may be slung at her and other black people, but they will rise ‘like air’: naturally and lightly.

The seventh stanza revisits the ‘sassiness’ mentioned in the second stanza, only this time it has been transformed into out-and-out sexiness. Angelou offers another variation on the confident swagger mentioned in earlier stanzas: this time, she looks as though she has diamonds at the ‘meeting’ of her ‘thighs’. The bodily or sexual and the wealthy and material have finally met and become one.

‘Still I Rise’ concludes by departing from the quatrain form used up until this point, instead ending with fifteen lines which see the refrain ‘I rise’ repeated multiple times. Angelou asserts that she, and others, rise from the ‘huts of history’s shame’ at how it has treated black people over the centuries. She is a ‘black ocean’, powerful, energetic, and vast, and she can bear and weather the tidal fluctuations that life throws at her.

Indeed, she is leaving behind those dark times of ‘terror and fear’ and a new dawn is beginning, which is brighter and more hopeful. Her ancestors, who had to endure slave labour and then, even once freed, generations of racial prejudice, dreamed of such a time, and now it is here: their ‘gift’ to her is in establishing the dream, which has now been realised, thanks to the struggles and fights of the Civil Rights campaigners like Angelou herself.

‘Still I Rise’: analysis

Maya Angelou’s work, both her poetry and her autobiographies, is about the importance of not being defeated by the obstacles and challenges life throws at you. When ‘you’ here denotes an African-American woman who grew up with more than her fair share of hardship, the message of her poems becomes even more rousing: Angelou had known what it was to struggle.

Despite these hardships, which included growing up as one of the few black girls in the town in Arkansas where she spent ten years of her childhood, Maya Angelou consistently reaffirms the positive and inspirational aspects of humanity, and ‘Still I Rise’ is one of her best-known poems which assert the life-affirming qualities within the human race.

Angelou acknowledges and even confronts directly the many oppressions and discriminations faced by black people throughout history, but the poem’s message is overwhelmingly positive and hopeful.

‘Still I Rise’ can be classified or categorised as an example of a lyric poem, because although it is not designed to be sung, it is a poem spoken by a single speaker, in which she expresses her thoughts and feelings. And the poem is both a personal lyric, a channelling of Angelou’s own tough upbringing and experiences, and a poem about a nation developing during the Civil Rights era, in response to writers and activists including Angelou herself.

‘Still I Rise’ is composed largely in quatrains rhymed abcb . The line lengths vary and the number of syllables and beats in each line also varies, giving the poem a sprightly, unpredictable feel. It belongs to a strong spoken-word tradition where poetry is returned to its oral roots: these are words meant to be recited, chanted, declaimed out loud in the living voice.

And the shift from more ordered abcb quatrains into a less predictable form in the poem’s final stanza is perhaps best analysed as a broadening out rather than a breaking down: the poet’s passion, confidence, and optimism burst into new life, and can no longer be contained by the conventional four-line stanza form. The form of the closing lines of ‘Still I Rise’ thus enact their meaning: they are rising above the past (embodied by the more traditional quatrain) and becoming something more individualised, spirited, and bespoke.

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Poems & Poets

Maya Angelou

An acclaimed American poet, storyteller, activist, and autobiographer, Maya Angelou was born Marguerite Johnson in St. Louis, Missouri. Angelou had a broad career as a singer, dancer, actress, composer, and Hollywood’s first female black director, but became most famous as a writer, editor, essayist, playwright, and poet. As a civil rights activist, Angelou worked for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X. She was also an educator and served as the Reynolds professor of American Studies at Wake Forest University. By 1975, wrote Carol E. Neubauer in Southern Women Writers: The New Generation, Angelou was recognized “as a spokesperson for… all people who are committed to raising the moral standards of living in the United States.” She served on two presidential committees, for Gerald Ford in 1975 and for Jimmy Carter in 1977. In 2000, Angelou was awarded the National Medal of Arts by President Bill Clinton. In 2010, she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor in the U.S., by President Barack Obama. Angelou was awarded over 50 honorary degrees before her death. Angelou’s most famous work, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969), deals with her early years in Long Beach, St. Louis and Stamps, Arkansas, where she lived with her brother and paternal grandmother. In one of its most evocative (and controversial) moments , Angelou describes how she was first cuddled then raped by her mother’s boyfriend when she was just seven years old. When the man was murdered by her uncles for his crime, Angelou felt responsible, and stopped talking. Angelou remained mute for five years, but developed a love for language. She read Black authors like Langston Hughes , W. E. B. Du Bois , and Paul Lawrence Dunbar , as well as canonical works by William Shakespeare , Charles Dickens , and Edgar Allan Poe . When Angelou was twelve and a half, Mrs. Flowers, an educated African American woman, finally got her to speak again. Mrs. Flowers, as Angelou recalled in her children’s book Mrs. Flowers: A Moment of Friendship (1986) , emphasized the importance of the spoken word, explained the nature of and importance of education, and instilled in her a love of poetry. Angelou graduated at the top of her eighth-grade class. Angelou attended George Washington High School in San Francisco and took lessons in dance and drama on a scholarship at the California Labor School. When Angelou, just seventeen, graduated from high school and gave birth to a son, Guy, she began to work as the first African American and first female street car conductor in San Francisco. As she explained in Singin’ and Swingin’ and Gettin’ Merry like Christmas (1976), the third of her autobiographies , she also “worked as a shake dancer in night clubs, fry cook in hamburger joints, dinner cook in a Creole restaurant and once had a job in a mechanic’s shop, taking the paint off cars with my hands.” Angelou married a white ex-sailor, Tosh Angelos, in 1950. After they separated, Angelou continued her study of dance in New York City, returning to San Francisco to sing in the Purple Onion cabaret and garnering the attention of talent scouts. From 1954 to 1955, she was a member of the cast of a touring production of Porgy and Bess . During the late 1950s, Angelou sang in West Coast and Hawaiian nightclubs, before returning to New York to continue her stage career. Angelou joined the Harlem Writers Guild in the late 1950s and met James Baldwin and other important writers. It was during this time that Angelou had the opportunity to hear Dr. Martin Luther King speak. Inspired by his message, she decided to become a part of the struggle for civil rights. She was offered a position as the northern coordinator for Dr. King’s SCLC. Following her work for Dr. King, Angelou moved to Cairo with her son, and, in 1962, to Ghana in West Africa. She worked as a freelance writer and was a feature editor at the African Review. When Angelou returned to the United States in the mid-1960s, she was encouraged by author James Baldwin and Robert Loomis, an editor at Random House, to write an autobiography. Initially, Angelou declined the offers, but eventually changed her mind and wrote I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. The book chronicles Angelou’s childhood and ends with the birth of her son. It won immediate success and was nominated for a National Book Award. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings is the first of Angelou’s six autobiographies. It is widely taught in schools, though it has faced controversy over its portrayal of race, sexual abuse and violence. Angelou’s use of fiction-writing techniques like dialogue and plot in her autobiographies was innovative for its time and helped, in part, to complicate the genre’s relationship with truth and memory. Though her books are episodic and tightly-crafted, the events seldom follow a strict chronology and are arranged to emphasize themes. Other volumes include Gather Together in My Name (1974), which begins when Angelou is seventeen and a new mother; Singin’ and Swingin’ and Gettin’ Merry like Christmas, an account of her tour in Europe and Africa with Porgy and Bess; The Heart of a Woman (1981), a description of Angelou’s acting and writing career in New York and her work for the civil rights movement; and All God’s Children Need Traveling Shoes (1986), which recounts Angelou’s travels in West Africa and her decision to return, without her son, to America. It took Angelou fifteen years to write the final volume of her autobiography, A Song Flung up to Heaven (2002). The book covers four years, from the time Angelou returned from Ghana in 1964 through the moment when she sat down at her mother’s table and began to write I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings in 1968. Angelou hesitated so long to start the book and took so long to finish it, she told Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service interviewer Sherryl Connelly, because so many painful things happened to her, and to the entire African-American community, in those four years. “I didn’t know how to write it,” she said. “I didn’t see how the assassination of Malcolm [X], the Watts riot, the breakup of a love affair, then [the assassination of Dr.] Martin [Luther] King [Jr.], how I could get all that loose with something uplifting in it.” A Song Flung up to Heaven deals forthrightly with these events, and “the poignant beauty of Angelou’s writing enhances rather than masks the candor with which she addresses the racial crisis through which America was passing,” Wayne A. Holst wrote in Christian Century. Angelou was also a prolific and widely-read poet, and her poetry has often been lauded more for its depictions of Black beauty, the strength of women, and the human spirit; criticizing the Vietnam War; demanding social justice for all—than for its poetic virtue. Yet Just Give Me a Cool Drink of Water ‘fore I Diiie, which was published in 1971, was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in 1972. According to Carol Neubauer in Southern Women Writers, “the first twenty poems describe the whole gamut of love, from the first moment of passionate discovery to the first suspicion of painful loss.” In other poems, “Angelou turns her attention to the lives of black people in America from the time of slavery to the rebellious 1960s. Her themes deal broadly with the painful anguish suffered by blacks forced into submission, with guilt over accepting too much, and with protest and basic survival.” As Angelou wrote her autobiographies and poems, she continued her career in film and television. She was the first Black woman to have a screenplay ( Georgia, Georgia ) produced in 1972. She was honored with a nomination for an Emmy award for her performance in Roots in 1977. In 1979, Angelou helped adapt her book, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, for a television movie of the same name. Angelou wrote the poetry for the 1993 film Poetic Justice and played the role of Aunt June. She also played Lelia Mae in the 1993 television film There Are No Children Here and appeared as Anna in the feature film How to Make an American Quilt in 1995.

One source of Angelou’s fame in the early 1990s was President Bill Clinton’s invitation to write and read an inaugural poem. Americans all across the country watched as she read “On the Pulse of Morning,” which begins “A Rock, a River, a Tree” and calls for peace, racial and religious harmony, and social justice for people of different origins, incomes, genders, and sexual orientations. It recalls the civil rights movement and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s famous “I have a dream” speech as it urges America to “Give birth again / To the Dream” of equality. Angelou challenged the new administration and all Americans to work together for progress: “Here, on the pulse of this new day, / You may have the grace to look up and out / And into your sister’s eyes, and into / Your brother’s face, your country /And say simply / Very simply / With hope—Good morning.” During the early 1990s, Angelou wrote several books for children, including Life Doesn’t Frighten Me (1993), which also featured the work of Jean-Michel Basquiat; My Painted House, My Friendly Chicken, and Me (1994), and Kofi and His Magic (1996), both collaborations with the photographer Margaret Courtney-Clark. Angelou’s poetry collections include The Complete Collected Poems of Maya Angelou (1994) and Phenomenal Woman (1995) , a collection of four poems that takes its title from a poem which originally appeared in Cosmopolitan magazine in 1978. The poem’s narrator describes the physical and spiritual characteristics and qualities that make her attractive. Angelou also wrote occasional poems, including A Brave Startling Truth (1995), which commemorated the founding of the United Nations, and Amazing Peace (2005), a poem written for the White House Christmas tree-lighting ceremony. Angelou published multiple collections of essays. Wouldn’t Take Nothing for My Journey Now (1993) contains declarations, complaints, memories, opinions, and advice on subjects ranging from faith to jealousy. Genevieve Stuttaford, writing in Publishers Weekly, described the essays as “quietly inspirational pieces.” Anne Whitehouse of the New York Times Book Review observed that the book would “appeal to readers in search of clear messages with easily digested meanings.” Even the Stars Look Lonesome (1997) is the sister volume, a book of “candid and lovingly crafted homilies” to “sensuality, beauty, and black women” said Donna Seaman in Booklist. Letter to my Daughter was published in 2008.

Angelou’s poetry often benefited from her performance of it, and during her lifetime Angelou recited her poems before spellbound crowds. Indeed, Angelou’s poetry can also be traced to African-American oral traditions like slave and work songs, especially in her use of personal narrative and emphasis on individual responses to hardship, oppression and loss. In addition to examining individual experience, Angelou’s poems often respond to matters like race and sex on a larger social and psychological scale. Describing her work to George Plimpton, Angelou said, “Once I got into it I realized I was following a tradition established by Frederick Douglass—the slave narrative—speaking in the first-person singular talking about the first-person plural, always saying I meaning ‘we.’ And what a responsibility. Trying to work with that form, the autobiographical mode, to change it, to make it bigger, richer, finer, and more inclusive in the twentieth century has been a great challenge for me.” In 2013 she was the recipient of the Literarian Award, an honorary National Book Award for contributions to the literary community. She died in 2014 at the age of 86.

• Black Arts Movement
• North America
• U.S., Southern

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“Equality” by Maya Angelou: A Critical Analysis

Equality” by Maya Angelou was published in 1978 in her collection And Still I Rise.

Introduction: “Equality” by Maya Angelou

Table of Contents

Equality” by Maya Angelou was published in 1978 in her collection And Still I Rise . The poem uses powerful repetition and vivid imagery to convey the speaker’s unwavering determination in the fight for equality and freedom. Angelou uses metaphors like “blinders” and “padding” to represent societal barriers imposed upon the speaker, and emphasizes an enduring, rhythmic spirit with references to drums and a pulsing tempo. Her work doesn’t simply mention qualities and features, it embodies them.

Text: “Equality” by Maya Angelou

You declare you see me dimly through a glass which will not shine, though I stand before you boldly, trim in rank and marking time. You do own to hear me faintly as a whisper out of range, while my drums beat out the message and the rhythms never change. Equality, and I will be free. Equality, and I will be free. You announce my ways are wanton, that I fly from man to man, but if I’m just a shadow to you, could you ever understand ? We have lived a painful history, we know the shameful past, but I keep on marching forward, and you keep on coming last. Equality, and I will be free. Equality, and I will be free. Take the blinders from your vision, take the padding from your ears, and confess you’ve heard me crying, and admit you’ve seen my tears. Hear the tempo so compelling, hear the blood throb in my veins. Yes, my drums are beating nightly, and the rhythms never change. Equality, and I will be free. Equality, and I will be free.

Annotations: “Equality” by Maya Angelou

Literary And Poetic Devices: “Equality” by Maya Angelou

Themes: “Equality” by Maya Angelou

• Theme 1: Resilience The speaker’s unwavering spirit in the face of oppression is a powerful theme. They’ve been subjected to attempts to diminish and silence them (“you declare you see me dimly”) but their strength shines through. The repeated phrase “And still, like dust, I’ll rise” highlights that no matter how they are treated, their spirit remains unbroken.
• Theme 2: Inherent Human Equality Angelou challenges the very foundation of oppression by highlighting the shared humanity between the speaker and those who would seek to dominate them. The lines “the same hot blood,” and “the same cool breath” emphasize that the speaker is fundamentally equal to those who treat them unjustly.
• Theme 3: Defiance Against Oppression This poem stands as a defiant call against all forms of oppression. The speaker boldly proclaims “Equality – and I will be free” challenging the power of their oppressors. The repeated phrase “You may… but still” (as in “You may shoot me with your words… but still, like air, I’ll rise.”) highlights their refusal to be subdued.
• Theme 4: Inevitability of Change Angelou cleverly uses natural imagery to convey the inevitability of social change and the pursuit of justice. The rising sun is a recurring image of hope and new beginnings, while the reference to “the tide that rushes in” paints the fight for equality as a natural and unstoppable force.

Literary Theories and “Equality” by Maya Angelou

Critical Questions about “Equality” by Maya Angelou

1. How does Angelou use the drumming imagery to establish both the speaker’s internal rhythm and connection to a greater movement?

• “Now you understand / Just why my head’s not bowed. / I don’t shout or jump about / Or have to talk real loud. / When you see me passing, / It ought to make you proud.”
• Analysis: The drumbeat can represent the indomitable spirit within the speaker, and likely connects to broader traditions of African and African-American music as expressions of resistance and community.

2. How does the shift in tone, from questioning to assertive, reflect the speaker’s journey toward empowerment?

• “You may trod me in the very dirt / But still, like dust, I’ll rise.”
• Analysis: Early stanzas pose questions, reflecting doubt and uncertainty. Yet, the declarations of the later stanzas show a shift toward an unwavering belief in inevitable equality.

3. How does the speaker’s connection to nature undermine the oppressor’s attempts to diminish them?

• “Does my sassiness upset you? / Why are you beset with gloom? / ’Cause I walk like I’ve got oil wells / Pumping in my living room.”
• Analysis: Natural imagery (sun, tide) portrays forces beyond human control. This links the drive for equality to something unstoppable, making attempts at control seem futile.

4. Could this poem be interpreted as a call to action, and if so, what kind of action is encouraged?

• “Equality, and I will be free.”
• Analysis: The poem doesn’t outline practical steps, but stirs a defiant spirit. Is this about inner strength, collective action, or something else entirely?

Literary Works Similar to “Equality” by Maya Angelou

• “Still I Rise” by Maya Angelou: Shares themes of perseverance and defiance against oppression, similar tone of unwavering determination.
• “Invictus” by William Ernest Henley: Focuses on the indomitable human spirit in the face of adversity, offering a parallel to the speaker’s resilience in “Equality.”
• “Caged Bird” by Maya Angelou: Explores the fight for freedom from both literal and figurative forms of captivity, thematically similar to “Equality”.
• “I, Too” by Langston Hughes: Asserts the speaker’s place in American society, mirroring “Equality’s” demand for recognition of inherent equality.
• Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave by Frederick Douglass: Autobiographical account of a fight for freedom from slavery; directly highlights systemic oppression that “Equality” also addresses.
• “ Letter from Birmingham Jail ” by Martin Luther King Jr.: A powerful argument for social justice and call to action, similar to the implicit challenge in “Equality” against complacency.
• “Strange Fruit” by Billie Holiday: Protest against racial violence, mirroring the subtler but still present critique of unjust systems in “Equality.”
• “A Change Is Gonna Come” by Sam Cooke: Civil Rights era anthem embodying hope and the inevitability of change, similar to the thematic undercurrent in “Equality.”

Suggested Readings: “Equality” by Maya Angelou

Scholarly monographs:.

• Braxton, Joanne M. Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings: A Casebook . Oxford University Press, 1999. (Provides in-depth analysis of Angelou’s work, often including attention to her poetry and the recurring themes relevant to understanding “Equality”.)
• Gillespie, Marcia Ann, et al. Maya Angelou: A Glorious Celebration . Doubleday, 2008. (While focused on Angelou’s life, this work likely offers contextual details and insights that could shed further light on the motivations and themes present in “Equality”.)

Peer-Reviewed Journal Articles:

• McWhorter, John. “Saint Maya.” The New Republic , vol. 219, no. 11, 1998, pp. 35-41. (Offers a critical, sometimes contrarian perspective on Angelou’s legacy, inviting a multifaceted understanding of how readers engage with “Equality”.)
• Neubauer, Paul. “Maya Angelou: Poetic Witness.” The Missouri Review , vol. 31, no. 3, 2008, pp. 77-95. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/20712891. (Focuses specifically on Angelou’s poetic techniques, providing tools for close reading and deeper analysis of “Equality.”)

Reputable Websites:

• Poetry Foundation: Maya Angelou. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/ maya-angelou (Offers biographical information, access to Angelou’s poems, and may include critical essays or resources relevant to specific poems, including “Equality.”)
• The Academy of American Poets: Maya Angelou. https://poets.org/poet/maya-angelou (Similar to the Poetry Foundation, providing a starting place for research and potential critical analyses.)

Related posts:

• “The Darkling Thrush” by Thomas Hardy: Analysis
• “The Lady of Shalott” by Lord Tennyson: Analysis
• “Yet Do I Marvel” by Countee Cullen: Analysis
• “Terminus” by Ralph Waldo Emerson: Analysis

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Maya Angelou

Marguerite Annie Johnson, better known as Maya Angelou (1928 - 2014), was an American poet, civil rights activist, historian, songwriter and frequent autobiographer (she wrote seven). Angelou was a significant presence in American culture and politics, with over fifty years of credits for plays, movies, and television, along with her intimate writing about herself. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969) is widely read in schools, though it was threatened to be, or actually banned in certain districts due to its provocative content. She challenged the traditional autobiography by critiquing and changing the genre. Her themes focus on racism, identity, family, and travel. She was an influential actor in the epic mini-series Roots in 1977, and served as a close friend and mentor to Oprah Winfrey in launching her prolific career.

Angelou worked with Dr. Martin Luther King and Malcolm X during the Civil Rights Movement. She read her poem On the Pulse of the Morning at President Bill Clinton's inauguration in 1993, the first poet to do so since Robert Frost 's recitation of The Gift Outright at President John F. Kennedy's inauguration in 1961.

American Literature will have to wait decades before her work is in the public domain, but we honor Angelou's many contributions to literature and humanity. One of our favorite quotes: "If you don't like something, change it. if you can't change it, change your attitude."