MAYA ANGELOU
Maya Angelou, who died May 28, in her office in Winston-Salem, N.C., Sept. 16, 1996.
(Chuck Burton)
When she was 8 years old, Maya Angelou stopped speaking. She silenced her voice because she thought her voice had killed a man. For almost five years, she spoke to no one but her beloved brother, Bailey.
The man she believed she had killed with her voice -- her mother's boyfriend, Mr. Freeman -- had raped her. After she testified against him in his trial, he was convicted and sentenced, but released from jail. Four days later, he was found dead. Murdered. Probably by Angelou's uncles, her memoir implies.
Angelou, who died Wednesday, told this story in her first book, "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings," her groundbreaking memoir about her childhood in the Jim Crow South. Published in 1969, when she was 41 years old, the book established her voice – the one she had silenced as a child -- as one of the most important in American literature. She went on to write six more memoirs, poetry, plays, screenplays, short stories, articles, music and two cookbooks, but "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" remains the work for which she is best known.
Her work and her life offer readers a personal journey through the African American experience of the 20th century, an experience that included friendships with Malcolm X, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and James Baldwin. She wrote with blazing honesty about racism, rape, her pregnancy at 16 and the deep fractures in her own family. Her strong voice spoke to countless readers, particularly black readers, who in 1969 were starved for literature by black authors writing intimately and truthfully about growing up and living in the "other" America.
But in "Caged Bird," Angelou's voice especially spoke to young women – young black women, but also young white women, who, even if they had not been raped or assaulted, always lived with the knowledge and fear of that trauma.
Many of us read "Caged Bird" in high school, an age when its themes of finding identity, strength and courage carry deep resonance. Angelou spoke to me, a middle-class white girl from the suburbs, in a voice that, once she started using it again, had a power that will live on long after her death.
Maya Angelou's autobiographies:
"I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" (1969)
"Gather Together in My Name" (1974)
"Singin' and Swingin' and Gettin' Merry Like Christmas" (1976)
"The Heart of a Woman" (1981)
"All God's Children Need Traveling Shoes" (1986)
"A Song Flung Up to Heaven" (2002)
"I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings: The Collected Autobiographies of Maya Angelou" (2004)
"Mom & Me & Mom" (2013)
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FAQs
When she was 8 years old, Maya Angelou stopped speaking. She silenced her voice because she thought her voice had killed a man. For almost five years, she spoke to no one but her beloved brother, Bailey. The man she believed she had killed with her voice -- her mother's boyfriend, Mr.
Why did Maya Angelou stop speaking as a child? ›
Her rapist was found guilty but spent only a single day in jail. After his release, he was beaten to death. Consequently, little Maya simply stopped speaking. “I thought, my voice killed him,” Maya Angelou wrote in her first autobiography, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, “I killed that man because I told his name.
What caused Maya Angelou to become mute? ›
Returning to her mother's care briefly at the age of seven, Angelou was raped by her mother's boyfriend. He was later jailed and then killed when released from jail. Believing that her confession of the trauma had a hand in the man's death, Angelou became mute for six years.
What was Maya Angelou's memoir about? ›
Maya Angelou's Life through her books. "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" is a 1969 autobiography about the early years of Dr. Angelou's life and is the most highly acclaimed of Angelou's autobiographies.
How did Maya Angelou find her voice? ›
Angelou's incredible personal journey started with tragedy in her early life: a sexual assault at age seven that rendered her mute for five years. During those years, books and poetry became her solace and constant companions, eventually helping her find her voice and embark upon an intellectual and creative journey.
How did Maya Angelou's childhood affect her? ›
Separated from her parents at the age of three, young Maya develops feelings of abandonment, internalized inferiority, self-rejection, displacement.
What challenges did Maya Angelou face as a child? ›
overcome prejudice, discrimination and abuse. Throughout her life, Angelou defied social norms. After being raped by her mother's boyfriend, she withdrew and was mute for five years.
What did Maya Angelou fight for? ›
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.
What are three facts about Maya Angelou's life? ›
Maya Angelou was awarded the National Medal of Arts (2000) and the Presidential Medal of Freedom (2010). She won three Grammy Awards for her spoken-word albums (1993, 1995, and 2002). In 1994 she was awarded the Spingarn Medal by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).
Why is Maya Angelou remembered for? ›
A poet, singer, autobiographer, and civil rights activist, Maya Angelou inspires us with both the beauty and the call to action of her words. Her most famous work is I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, an autobiography about her childhood. The book is a testament to the need for resilience in the face of discrimination.
Maya and her brother returned to live with their grandmother and during her 5 years of silence, Maya was introduced to literature. Eventually, a teacher and family friend, Bertha Flowers, helped her to speak again, using the power of the written word.
What is Maya Angelou's identity? ›
The writings of Maya Angelou (Marguerite Annie Johnson) a black woman autobiographer, depict her anguish as a poor southern black girl devoid of love and opportunities in the so called prosperous, promising land.
What is one of Maya Angelou's famous quotes? ›
“Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.” “We may encounter many defeats, but we must not be defeated. It may even be necessary to encounter the defeat, so that we can know who we are.”
What age did Maya Angelou start talking again? ›
Maya began to speak again at 13, when she and her brother rejoined their mother in San Francisco. Maya attended Mission High School and won a scholarship to study dance and drama at San Francisco's Labor School, where she was exposed to the progressive ideals that animated her later political activism.
Why did Maya Angelou speak 6 languages? ›
She spoke at least six languages. Angelou toured Europe as part of the hit opera Porgy and Bess in 1954-55, and spent time living in both Egypt and Ghana during the 1960s. As a result, she could speak French, Spanish, Italian, Arabic and the West African language Fanti.
Why did Maya Angelou forgive her mother for abandoning her? ›
Why did Maya Angelou forgive her mother? Maya Angelou eventually forgave her mother because she got to know her mother. Early in Maya's life, her mother was absent or negligent, which caused Maya a great deal of pain.
What did Maya Angelou say about children? ›
I am convinced that most people do not grow up... 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 innocent and shy as magnolias.
