“The fact that the adult American Negro female emerges a formidable character is often met with amazement, distaste and even belligerence. It is seldom accepted as an inevitable outcome of the struggle won by survivors and deserves respect if not enthusiastic acceptance.”
This book is about several things. It is the autobiography of Maya Angelou’s first 16 years of life. It is also the story of strong black women as evidenced by the quote above which is towards the end of the book. It is about the black experience growing up in a racially divided world. It is about folks making it the best they can under those conditions. And under all this is the story of surviving sexual abuse.
The first strong woman we encounter is Momma, her father’s mother who lives in Stamps, Arkansas. Stamps is in the southwest corner of Arkansas, a poor region in one of the poorest states in the Union. Momma ran “the only Negro general merchandise store since the turn of the century” in that part of Arkansas. And Momma did reasonable well for herself. She is in a financial position where she has white renters, and at times loaned money to white people. She is also old school religious. After her son and Maya’s mother split the blanket, Maya and her brother are unceremoniously placed with their grandmother. Momma provides a moral compass which the children adopt to varying degrees. She also provides discipline and a safe harbor, especially after Maya returns to Stamps after the abuse.
There is Grandmother Baxter, her mother’s mother. She was described as an octoroon who spoke with a German accent. She had power and leverage within the black community and police department from her combined activities as precinct captain, minor criminal activities and six mean children. While she did not look black, she was married to a black man, and was another strong black woman in Maya’s childhood. Unfortunately, the mean children compounded the abuse, by killing the abuser. This added to the already tremendous guilt that she was dealing with.
There was Mrs. Bertha Flowers, “the aristocrat of Black Stamps”. It was she who helped bring Maya out of her shell after the trauma of the abuse.
And then there is Maya’s mother, Vivian Baxter Johnson. She is described in the book as resembling a movie star of the era only more beautiful.
“I laughed too, but not at the hateful jokes made on my people. I laughed because, except that she was white, the big movie star looked just like my mother. Except that she lived in a big mansion with a thousand servants, she lived just like my mother. And it was funny to think of the whitefolk’s not knowing that the woman they were adoring could be my mother’s twin, except that she was white and my mother was prettier. Much prettier.”
She worked initially as a nurse, but found she could make more money living on the fringes. She ran card games, worked in clubs, but always saw herself as an honest woman. She generally had a man who was also lived on the edges and did well for himself. Vivian saw what she did as better than doing the white folk’s cleaning. I think she had a point. She managed to live life on her on terms, and make a decent living doing so. On the other hand her lifestyle did not leave a lot of room for parenting. However, I saw her as another strong black woman. She tried the best she knew how within the parameters of her life to keep her children on the straight and narrow.
Maya’s father was in and out of the picture. He was not a bad man, but he had other priorities in life than children.
A big portion of Maya’s early life was spent in Stamps, Arkansas, a very poor and a very segregated area. The blacks lived in their area and the whites in their area. They mixed very little. When they did, it was the blacks in a subservient role serving the whiles in some way.
There is a humorous and telling section where Maya is working for a very rigid white lady. Things are not going well, and Maya is trying her hardest to get fired as Momma will not let her quit. Her brother suggests that she break something her employer really likes. She does.
‘“Oh Momma, Oh, dear Gawd. It’s Momma’s china from Virginia. Oh, Momma, I sorry.”
Miss Glory came running in from the yard and the women from the porch crowded around. Miss Glory was almost as broke up as her mistress. “You mean to say she broke our Virginia dishes? What we gone do?”
Mrs. Cullinan cried louder, “That clumsy nigger. Clumsy, little black nigger.”’
There is the white dentist who borrowed money from Maya’s grandmother, but refuses to work on Maya’s teeth. He argued it would ruin his business.
‘Momma said, “I wouldn’t press on you like this for myself but I can’t take No. Not for my grandbaby. When you come to borrow my money you didn’t have to beg. You asked me, and I lent it. Now, it wasn’t my policy. I ain’t no moneylender, but you stood to lose this building. And I tried to help you out.”
“It’s been paid, and raising your voice won’t make me change my mind, My policy…” He let go of the door and stepped nearer Momma. The three of us were crowded on the small landing. “Annie, my policy is I’d rather stick my hand in a dog’s mouth than a nigger’s.”’
They left Stamps to reunite with their mother in San Francisco. Without Stamps and without San Francisco we would not have had Maya Angelou. They both contributed to developing her character. However, without Momma, she lost her moral compass for a while. San Francisco on the other hand, opened up intellectual doors she would have never have encountered in Stamps.
She does deal somewhat with the displacement of the Japanese from San Francisco at the beginning of World War II. Their displacement, however, was an opportunity for the blacks coming into town to work on the war effort. Such has been human history, one group gaining at another’s expense.
Puberty finally arrives for Maya. She has a sexual encounter with a young man mainly to quell her fear that she might be a lesbian, even though she did not really know what a lesbian is. She becomes pregnant from this single encounter and bears a son. Here the book abruptly ended leaving me a little disconcerted. I discovered afterwards this is just the first in a series of autobiographical books by Maya Angelou.
This book is sad in parts, funny in others. It is a picture of a time when segregation reigned. It is a story of a people and person prevailing despite of it.
The book is available at regular outlets.
The other autobiographical books by Maya Angelou are:
- Gather Together in My Name
- Singin’ and Swingin’ and Gettin’ Merry Like Christmas
- The Heart of a Woman
- All God’s Children Need Traveling Shoes
- A Song Flung Up to Heaven.
Collected Autobiographies by Maya Angelou at Amazon