Maya Angelou: And Still I Rise

0:00:07 > 0:00:12# I open my mouth to the Lord

0:00:12 > 0:00:17# And I won't turn back, no

0:00:17 > 0:00:22# I will go, I shall go

0:00:23 > 0:00:30# To see what the end is gonna be. #

0:00:30 > 0:00:32APPLAUSE

0:00:35 > 0:00:39Few people have transformed the way that we think about race and culture

0:00:39 > 0:00:42as the poet and writer Maya Angelou.

0:00:42 > 0:00:45Nearly 50 years after the publication of her first book,

0:00:45 > 0:00:49her cry for a world of equality and tolerance

0:00:49 > 0:00:51is as powerful and relevant as ever.

0:00:51 > 0:00:54And what's remarkable is that her writing

0:00:54 > 0:00:56was directly based on her life.

0:00:56 > 0:00:58And what a life.

0:00:58 > 0:01:02A trailblazing activist, who worked alongside Malcolm X

0:01:02 > 0:01:07and Martin Luther King, Maya Angelou was also a singer, a dancer,

0:01:07 > 0:01:12an actress, and made her directorial movie debut at the age of 70.

0:01:13 > 0:01:15So she was a consummate performer.

0:01:17 > 0:01:22And I think that whatever else it is, this is a life lived on stage.

0:01:22 > 0:01:27Lift up your heart and say, simply, "Good morning."

0:01:30 > 0:01:33You have a woman who was like a tree trunk, you know what I mean?

0:01:33 > 0:01:35She's like a redwood,

0:01:35 > 0:01:39and she has deep, deep roots

0:01:39 > 0:01:42within American culture.

0:01:42 > 0:01:46I would hate to see her just remembered for one thing.

0:01:47 > 0:01:51The Phenomenal Woman is not just the title of something she wrote,

0:01:51 > 0:01:53it's who she was.

0:01:54 > 0:02:01Just before she died, in 2014, Angelou was captured on film.

0:02:01 > 0:02:05And tonight, Imagine presents the extraordinary story

0:02:05 > 0:02:06of an American legend.

0:02:22 > 0:02:27The caged bird sings with a fearful trill

0:02:27 > 0:02:31of things unknown but longed for still

0:02:31 > 0:02:34and his tune is heard on the distant hill

0:02:34 > 0:02:37for the caged bird sings of freedom.

0:02:39 > 0:02:41The free bird thinks of another breeze

0:02:41 > 0:02:45and the trade winds soft through the sighing trees

0:02:45 > 0:02:51and the fat worms waiting on a dawn bright lawn

0:02:51 > 0:02:53and he names the sky his own.

0:02:54 > 0:02:57But a bird that stalks down his narrow cage

0:02:57 > 0:03:00can seldom see through his bars of rage

0:03:00 > 0:03:03his feet are tied his wings are clipped

0:03:03 > 0:03:05so he opens his throat to sing.

0:03:10 > 0:03:15One of the first memories I have, I was three years old,

0:03:15 > 0:03:18and my brother Bailey, five.

0:03:18 > 0:03:22My father and mother had agreed to disagree,

0:03:22 > 0:03:27and neither of them wanted the problems of having two toddlers.

0:03:29 > 0:03:34So they put us on a train and sent us from Los Angeles to Arkansas,

0:03:34 > 0:03:35with tags on our arms.

0:03:36 > 0:03:39No adult supervision.

0:03:39 > 0:03:43Pullman car porters took us off trains, put us on other trains.

0:03:43 > 0:03:46And we arrived in Stamps,

0:03:46 > 0:03:49a little village in Arkansas about the size of this room.

0:03:51 > 0:03:56I thought it was the worst thing, when I declared my mother dead,

0:03:56 > 0:04:01so that I wouldn't have to long for her.

0:04:01 > 0:04:03Yes, that was terrible rejection.

0:04:03 > 0:04:05My brother has never recovered.

0:04:11 > 0:04:15My grandmother owned the only black-owned store

0:04:15 > 0:04:16in that little village.

0:04:16 > 0:04:19And she had one more child, my Uncle Willie.

0:04:20 > 0:04:22She was the child of a former slave.

0:04:23 > 0:04:28Amazing. I think my grandmother started teaching me to read

0:04:28 > 0:04:30that afternoon when we arrived.

0:04:32 > 0:04:34My brother Bailey taught me,

0:04:34 > 0:04:37"Just learn everything, put it in your brain.

0:04:37 > 0:04:42"You're smarter than everybody around here. Except me, of course."

0:04:45 > 0:04:52In my memory, Stamps is a place of light, shadow, sounds,

0:04:52 > 0:04:56and enchanting odours.

0:04:56 > 0:04:59The yellowish acid of the ponds and rivers.

0:05:00 > 0:05:06The deep pots of greens cooking for hours with smoked or cured pork.

0:05:07 > 0:05:10And above all,

0:05:10 > 0:05:15the atmosphere was pressed down with the smell of old fears.

0:05:18 > 0:05:21Is that all the size of the bridge?

0:05:23 > 0:05:24SHE LAUGHS

0:05:25 > 0:05:29I was terribly hurt in this town,

0:05:29 > 0:05:33and vastly loved.

0:05:37 > 0:05:43Uncle Willie was crippled, his whole right side was paralysed.

0:05:43 > 0:05:46My uncle Willie taught me my times-tables.

0:05:46 > 0:05:50He'd say, "Now, sister, do your fourses, do your sevenses,

0:05:50 > 0:05:54"do your elevenses." I learned my multiplication tables exquisitely.

0:05:58 > 0:06:00'And when "the boys", as they were euphemistically called,

0:06:00 > 0:06:05'when the Klan would ride down the hill toward the store...'

0:06:05 > 0:06:07Maya? Bailey Jr?

0:06:07 > 0:06:09Both of you.

0:06:09 > 0:06:10'We had to hide Uncle Willie.'

0:06:12 > 0:06:14The potatoes, the onions.

0:06:15 > 0:06:19'Cos a white girl could say, "Well, he made an attempt to touch me." '

0:06:21 > 0:06:23It just shouldn't be.

0:06:25 > 0:06:28'We had to help Uncle Willie to get down in the bin.

0:06:30 > 0:06:33'And we'd cover him with potatoes and onions.'

0:06:36 > 0:06:40And I could just picture his tears going into the eyes of the potatoes.

0:06:44 > 0:06:47The Klan would ride up in front of the store.

0:06:49 > 0:06:52Bailey and I would peek out the window.

0:06:52 > 0:06:54Tall horses that looked so big,

0:06:54 > 0:06:58they didn't look like horses you see every day.

0:06:58 > 0:06:59Big guns.

0:07:01 > 0:07:06So one of my fantasies when I was, oh, seven,

0:07:06 > 0:07:10six or seven, was that suddenly there'd be a...

0:07:11 > 0:07:14Somebody would just say "Shazam,"

0:07:14 > 0:07:20and I would be white and I wouldn't be looked at with such loathing

0:07:20 > 0:07:23when I walked in the white part of town, which I had to do.

0:07:23 > 0:07:25You really wished...

0:07:26 > 0:07:31..either that you could dry up in a moment

0:07:31 > 0:07:33and just shrivel up like that.

0:07:33 > 0:07:39And, instead of that I'd put my head up and walk through, grit my teeth,

0:07:39 > 0:07:45surviving. But, my God, what scars does that leave on somebody?

0:07:45 > 0:07:48I wouldn't... I don't even dare examine it myself.

0:07:48 > 0:07:50And when I reached for...

0:07:52 > 0:07:53..the pen...

0:07:54 > 0:07:56- To write?- To write.

0:07:58 > 0:08:03I have to scrape it across those scars to sharpen that point.

0:08:06 > 0:08:11If growing up is painful for the Southern black girl,

0:08:11 > 0:08:16being aware of her displacement is the rust on the razor

0:08:16 > 0:08:18that threatens the throat.

0:08:19 > 0:08:21It is an unnecessary insult.

0:08:28 > 0:08:32And then at about six or seven,

0:08:32 > 0:08:35my father took me and my brother, Bailey,

0:08:35 > 0:08:38back to St Louis to my mother, to her family.

0:08:38 > 0:08:41She had left California after they separated.

0:08:44 > 0:08:48The Negro section of St Louis in the mid '30s had all the finesse

0:08:48 > 0:08:50of a Gold Rush town.

0:08:50 > 0:08:54Prohibition, gambling and their related vocations

0:08:54 > 0:08:56were so obviously practised

0:08:56 > 0:09:01that it was hard for me to believe that they were against the law.

0:09:01 > 0:09:08My mother had record players, and jazz and blues songs.

0:09:08 > 0:09:11It was amazing, and she danced.

0:09:11 > 0:09:13She wore lipstick.

0:09:13 > 0:09:17And, oh, my grandmother would never do anything like that.

0:09:20 > 0:09:24My mother's boyfriend was intoxicated with my mother.

0:09:24 > 0:09:29In his rage at his inability to control her

0:09:29 > 0:09:32and have her when he wanted her,

0:09:32 > 0:09:33he raped me.

0:09:34 > 0:09:35I was seven.

0:09:38 > 0:09:42The act of rape is the matter of the needle giving

0:09:42 > 0:09:44because the camel cannot.

0:09:44 > 0:09:49The child gives because the body can and the mind of the violator cannot.

0:09:53 > 0:09:58I told the name of the rapist to my brother who was nine.

0:09:58 > 0:10:03I said, "I can't tell you his name because he said he would kill you."

0:10:03 > 0:10:05He said, "I won't let him."

0:10:05 > 0:10:08So I believed him. The man was put in jail

0:10:08 > 0:10:11for one day and night and released,

0:10:11 > 0:10:16and a few days later the police came to my mother's mother's house

0:10:16 > 0:10:19and said the man had been found dead

0:10:19 > 0:10:21and it seemed he'd been kicked to death.

0:10:22 > 0:10:27My seven-year-old logic told me that my voice had killed a man.

0:10:28 > 0:10:32So I stopped speaking for five years.

0:10:35 > 0:10:39I clamped my teeth shut, I'd hold it in.

0:10:39 > 0:10:44If I talked to anyone else, that person might die too.

0:10:44 > 0:10:47I had to stop talking.

0:10:52 > 0:10:55My mother's people tried to woo me away from my mutism,

0:10:55 > 0:10:57but they didn't know what I knew.

0:10:57 > 0:11:01I think they wearied of the presence of this sullen, silent child.

0:11:01 > 0:11:04So they put me and Bailey back on the train,

0:11:04 > 0:11:07back to Stamps to my grandmother.

0:11:08 > 0:11:12And one of the first things I remember was my grandmother

0:11:12 > 0:11:16braiding my hair, and my hair was huge.

0:11:16 > 0:11:19She said, "Sister, Mama don't care these people say you must be a idiot

0:11:19 > 0:11:22"or you must be a moron cos you can't talk.

0:11:22 > 0:11:26"Mama don't care. Mama know when you and the Good Lord get ready.

0:11:26 > 0:11:28"Sister, you're going to be a preacher, you're going to be

0:11:28 > 0:11:31"a teacher, you're going to teach all over this world."

0:11:32 > 0:11:34I used to sit there and think, "This poor, ignorant woman,

0:11:34 > 0:11:37"doesn't she know I will never speak?"

0:11:45 > 0:11:48There was a lady in town, Mrs Flowers,

0:11:48 > 0:11:50and she would take me to her house.

0:11:50 > 0:11:53She made lemonade and tea cookies, delicious.

0:11:54 > 0:11:58And she'd serve me and she knew I didn't speak

0:11:58 > 0:12:01and she'd read one of the poets to me.

0:12:02 > 0:12:06She'd done this with me for three or four years.

0:12:07 > 0:12:10And finally, I was at her house one day and she said,

0:12:10 > 0:12:12"Maya, you don't like poetry.

0:12:12 > 0:12:15"You'll never like it until you speak it,

0:12:15 > 0:12:18"until you feel it come across your tongue, over your teeth,

0:12:18 > 0:12:21"through your lips, you will never like it."

0:12:23 > 0:12:27So finally I went under the house where there used to be chickens

0:12:27 > 0:12:29and the dirt was soft like powder.

0:12:32 > 0:12:34And I tried poetry.

0:12:40 > 0:12:46Now, to show you how out of evil there can come good,

0:12:46 > 0:12:54in those five years I read every book in the black school library.

0:12:54 > 0:12:58I read all the books I could get from the white school library.

0:12:59 > 0:13:03I memorised James Weldon Johnson, Paul Laurence Dunbar,

0:13:03 > 0:13:06Countee Cullen and Langston Hughes.

0:13:06 > 0:13:09I memorised Shakespeare, whole plays.

0:13:11 > 0:13:1350 sonnets.

0:13:14 > 0:13:19I memorised Edgar Allen Poe, all the poetry.

0:13:19 > 0:13:22I had Longfellow, I had Guy de Maupassant.

0:13:22 > 0:13:24I had Balzac.

0:13:25 > 0:13:27When I decided to speak...

0:13:28 > 0:13:30..I had a lot to say.

0:13:32 > 0:13:37I have written a poem for a woman who rides a bus in New York City.

0:13:37 > 0:13:41She's a maid. She has two shopping bags.

0:13:41 > 0:13:43When the bus stops abruptly, she laughs.

0:13:43 > 0:13:46If the bus stops slowly she laughs.

0:13:46 > 0:13:47I thought, "Mmm, uh-huh."

0:13:47 > 0:13:49Now, if you don't know black features,

0:13:49 > 0:13:51you may think she's laughing

0:13:51 > 0:13:53but she wasn't laughing,

0:13:53 > 0:13:56she was simply extending her lips and making a sound.

0:13:56 > 0:13:58Ha-ha-ha.

0:13:58 > 0:14:02I said, "Oh, I see, that's that survival apparatus."

0:14:02 > 0:14:06Now let me write about that to honour this woman

0:14:06 > 0:14:08who helps us to survive.

0:14:09 > 0:14:1370 years in these folks' world

0:14:13 > 0:14:16The child I works for calls me girl

0:14:18 > 0:14:21I say, "Ha-ha-ha, yes, ma'am"

0:14:21 > 0:14:24for working's sake.

0:14:24 > 0:14:27I'm too proud to bend and too poor to break,

0:14:27 > 0:14:31So, hmm-hmm-hmm, I laugh

0:14:31 > 0:14:34until my stomach ache,

0:14:34 > 0:14:35When I think about myself.

0:14:36 > 0:14:40My folks can make me split my side,

0:14:40 > 0:14:45I laugh so hard, ha-ha-ha, I nearly died.

0:14:45 > 0:14:49The tales they tell sound just like lying,

0:14:49 > 0:14:53They grow the fruit, but eat the rind.

0:14:53 > 0:14:57Hmm, I laugh, ha-ha-ha,

0:14:57 > 0:14:59until I start to crying,

0:14:59 > 0:15:02When I think about myself.

0:15:02 > 0:15:03Ha-ha-ha.

0:15:03 > 0:15:06Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha.

0:15:06 > 0:15:09Ha-ha, ha-ha, ha-ha-ha.

0:15:27 > 0:15:31A painting of Maya is to be placed

0:15:31 > 0:15:35in the Smithsonian Institute.

0:15:35 > 0:15:36It's quite an honour.

0:15:36 > 0:15:38Thank you, thank you.

0:15:39 > 0:15:41- Ms Angelou?- Yes, sir?

0:15:41 > 0:15:46- Oh, my goodness gracious! - Hey, you girl!

0:15:46 > 0:15:47Oh, honey.

0:15:50 > 0:15:55I wish my grandmother, who died 50 years ago,

0:15:55 > 0:15:58I wish she was alive

0:15:58 > 0:16:00and could see this.

0:16:00 > 0:16:02APPLAUSE

0:16:02 > 0:16:03Wow!

0:16:05 > 0:16:07Oh, my land.

0:16:07 > 0:16:10We have made tremendous gains.

0:16:10 > 0:16:13Not nearly as much as we want to.

0:16:13 > 0:16:17If I had that power, I would make everybody an African-American.

0:16:18 > 0:16:20At least for a week.

0:16:21 > 0:16:22Know what it's like.

0:16:22 > 0:16:26Know what it's like to get on a bus or any public conveyance

0:16:26 > 0:16:30and have people look at you as if you have just stolen

0:16:30 > 0:16:31the baby's milk.

0:16:32 > 0:16:34Look at you and turn their face away.

0:16:34 > 0:16:37And still saying, "I forgive you."

0:16:38 > 0:16:43I'm not starting any... I'm not starting any race riots.

0:16:43 > 0:16:44I forgive you.

0:16:46 > 0:16:48And I forgive myself.

0:16:48 > 0:16:49My lord.

0:16:49 > 0:16:51- AUDIENCE MEMBER:- Do it.

0:16:51 > 0:16:53Huh? That's it.

0:16:53 > 0:16:55My son says, "Do it, Mom."

0:16:55 > 0:16:57LAUGHTER

0:16:57 > 0:17:00I want to acknowledge the presence of my son.

0:17:00 > 0:17:04The greatest thing that ever happened to me was to give birth

0:17:04 > 0:17:07to Guy Johnson, and to have the privilege

0:17:07 > 0:17:10and the pleasure and the fear and all of that

0:17:10 > 0:17:15of raising that black boy in a white country.

0:17:18 > 0:17:25I was 16, living in San Francisco, I was almost six foot.

0:17:25 > 0:17:27And there was a boy who used to say,

0:17:27 > 0:17:31"Hey, Maya when you going to give me some of that long brown frame?"

0:17:31 > 0:17:34And so one day I saw him in the street and I said,

0:17:34 > 0:17:37"Say, you still want...?" He said, "What?"

0:17:37 > 0:17:42I said, "Let's go somewhere." So he had the keys to a friend's house...

0:17:43 > 0:17:46..and we went there and we had sex.

0:17:47 > 0:17:49And I thought, "Is that all there is?"

0:17:49 > 0:17:52People making such a big miration.

0:17:52 > 0:17:55I had watched people in the movies

0:17:55 > 0:18:00and they were just so pleased to be in each other's arms.

0:18:00 > 0:18:02I didn't feel any of that.

0:18:02 > 0:18:04And I ask him, "Is that all there is?"

0:18:04 > 0:18:06And he said, "Yeah."

0:18:06 > 0:18:09So I said "OK, bye," and I went home.

0:18:09 > 0:18:12And a month later I found out I was pregnant.

0:18:14 > 0:18:19My mother never made me feel guilty, she never made me feel ashamed.

0:18:19 > 0:18:22She asked me, "Do you love the boy?" I said "No." She asked,

0:18:22 > 0:18:24"Does he love you?" I said, "No."

0:18:24 > 0:18:26She said, "We're not going to ruin three lives.

0:18:26 > 0:18:28"You're going to have a beautiful baby."

0:18:28 > 0:18:31And that's just the way she treated him,

0:18:31 > 0:18:32and me.

0:18:34 > 0:18:39And then a fellow started coming, he had been a sailor -

0:18:39 > 0:18:41Tosh Angelos, a Greek.

0:18:41 > 0:18:45I didn't think that white and blacks would get together like that.

0:18:46 > 0:18:49But I liked him, he was bright.

0:18:49 > 0:18:52He had read as much as I had read.

0:18:52 > 0:18:54He had read the Russian writers.

0:18:54 > 0:18:56And he liked my son.

0:18:57 > 0:19:01When he asked me to marry him, his mother said,

0:19:01 > 0:19:03"You can't marry her, she's black."

0:19:03 > 0:19:07He said, "I noticed that first."

0:19:07 > 0:19:14My mother was so disgusted with me, she moved a 14-room house

0:19:14 > 0:19:17two days before the wedding, 500 miles away.

0:19:17 > 0:19:1914 rooms.

0:19:19 > 0:19:21But then she fell for him.

0:19:21 > 0:19:25He was a good husband, he was a good father, she fell for him.

0:19:25 > 0:19:29So a few years later when I said to her, "I'm leaving him", she said,

0:19:29 > 0:19:33"How can you? How dare you?"

0:19:33 > 0:19:37But I won't stay in a relationship if there's no love there.

0:19:39 > 0:19:40In his nine years of schooling,

0:19:40 > 0:19:43we had lived in five areas of San Francisco,

0:19:43 > 0:19:47three townships in Los Angeles, New York City,

0:19:47 > 0:19:49Hawaii and Cleveland, Ohio.

0:19:49 > 0:19:53I followed the jobs, and I had taken Guy along.

0:19:55 > 0:20:00What I remember most when I think of a childhood memory is the fact that

0:20:00 > 0:20:05she would come to school wearing her African clothes and her hair natural

0:20:05 > 0:20:09and some idiot kid in the class would say,

0:20:09 > 0:20:11"Yo' momma from Lost Africa."

0:20:11 > 0:20:13And I'd have to pop him!

0:20:14 > 0:20:17And then I would come home and I would ask my mother,

0:20:17 > 0:20:21"Don't you have a sweater, skirt outfit?

0:20:21 > 0:20:23"One of those Penny's things?"

0:20:23 > 0:20:26And she would say to me,

0:20:26 > 0:20:29"This is your history.

0:20:29 > 0:20:32"You come from kings and queens."

0:20:32 > 0:20:36And I would look at her and I would think, "Yes, it's unfortunate,

0:20:36 > 0:20:37"my mother's demented."

0:20:46 > 0:20:49My mother was working in nightclubs at the time.

0:20:51 > 0:20:55I got jobs in strip joints.

0:20:55 > 0:20:57I didn't strip, but then I didn't have to.

0:20:57 > 0:21:02I had a costume that was about big enough to put in the palm of my hand

0:21:02 > 0:21:05like that. So I didn't have much on to strip.

0:21:05 > 0:21:08Bands always wanted to play for me because I danced.

0:21:08 > 0:21:11The other strippers just walk out and...

0:21:11 > 0:21:13# Tea for two and two for tea... #

0:21:13 > 0:21:16And take off something and throw it in the audience.

0:21:16 > 0:21:18But I would hit it.

0:21:22 > 0:21:25And so I met people who invited me out.

0:21:27 > 0:21:29And I said, "Have you heard calypso?"

0:21:29 > 0:21:30And they said, "No."

0:21:30 > 0:21:33So I sang some calypso, just a cappella.

0:21:34 > 0:21:39And they said, "You should come and open in the Purple Onion."

0:21:39 > 0:21:42So if I would sing, I would make three times the money.

0:21:42 > 0:21:46And so I stopped dancing as a rule and started singing.

0:21:46 > 0:21:48Maya Angelou!

0:21:48 > 0:21:49APPLAUSE

0:21:49 > 0:21:51I talked some friends of mine

0:21:51 > 0:21:55into going to this little club, late '50s.

0:21:55 > 0:22:00And what I remember is Maya making her entrance.

0:22:01 > 0:22:02Very tall...

0:22:03 > 0:22:05..very grand.

0:22:05 > 0:22:07No shoes.

0:22:07 > 0:22:09# Mo and Joe run the candy store

0:22:09 > 0:22:11# Telling fortunes behind the door... #

0:22:11 > 0:22:16That she was an original is certainly an understatement.

0:22:16 > 0:22:19# Run, Joe... #

0:22:19 > 0:22:23She was exact and refined with her movements,

0:22:24 > 0:22:26She was limbs.

0:22:26 > 0:22:30I mean, she was a beautiful Giacometti sculpture.

0:22:35 > 0:22:42At the time that was the trend in music, Afro-Caribbean, calypso,

0:22:42 > 0:22:44and Maya was known as Miss Calypso.

0:22:46 > 0:22:51# Always busy in the marketplace, makes me dizzy in the marketplace

0:22:51 > 0:22:54# 'Tis a wonder to me to constantly see

0:22:54 > 0:22:57# All that happens in the marketplace

0:22:59 > 0:23:02# That flower girl has an innocent face,

0:23:02 > 0:23:05# The most well-bred in the marketplace

0:23:05 > 0:23:07# She's a voodoo girl from dusk till dawn

0:23:07 > 0:23:10# She'll cast a spell just for fun... #

0:23:10 > 0:23:15The voice was no great voice, but she knew how to use it.

0:23:15 > 0:23:18# Just a wonder to me to constantly see

0:23:18 > 0:23:20# All that happens in the marketplace. #

0:23:23 > 0:23:28We had a dance troupe in Los Angeles called the Lester Horton Dancers

0:23:28 > 0:23:34and we heard that we were to be on a bill with Maya Angelou in Las Vegas.

0:23:36 > 0:23:41Now this was like '56, '57.

0:23:41 > 0:23:46At that time Lena Horne, Belafonte, Sammy Davis,

0:23:46 > 0:23:51they were all big name black performers but they couldn't mingle

0:23:51 > 0:23:55in the lounges. They had to perform, go back to their room.

0:23:58 > 0:24:02So when we get to Las Vegas, we realise that we're confronting this,

0:24:02 > 0:24:05you know, we can't go here, we can't go there.

0:24:05 > 0:24:07I mean, we were a young company.

0:24:07 > 0:24:11So we looked to Maya for guidance and we followed her lead.

0:24:13 > 0:24:19And she didn't protest overtly, she just, you know,

0:24:19 > 0:24:23I guess made mental notes that this has got to be corrected.

0:24:24 > 0:24:27MUSIC: Summertime by George Gershwin

0:24:33 > 0:24:38Well, Porgy and Bess came and performed in San Francisco

0:24:38 > 0:24:41and someone told me they're looking for a dancer.

0:24:42 > 0:24:44So, I thought, "Hmm",

0:24:44 > 0:24:49and they would pay much more and I'd get a chance to travel around

0:24:49 > 0:24:52the United States. And maybe get a chance to go to Europe.

0:24:54 > 0:24:56I auditioned for them and they accepted me.

0:24:57 > 0:25:02I sang the role, Ruby, but the truth is, I couldn't really sing, I mean,

0:25:02 > 0:25:07I could sing but I wasn't a trained singer, I really was a dancer.

0:25:07 > 0:25:09And at least once every two or three weeks,

0:25:09 > 0:25:14one of the singers would say to me, "Maya, I'm sorry to tell you,

0:25:14 > 0:25:19"but you flatted that G or you flatted that A."

0:25:19 > 0:25:23I didn't even know I was singing in the alphabet, I just sang the role.

0:25:26 > 0:25:28It was a wonderful experience...

0:25:29 > 0:25:31..because we went all over the world.

0:25:47 > 0:25:51The horrible thing for me was I had left my son.

0:25:51 > 0:25:52I'd left my son.

0:25:54 > 0:25:57And I called him at least once a week

0:25:57 > 0:25:59and we'd talk and cry on the phone.

0:26:00 > 0:26:03It was terrible. I felt so guilty.

0:26:03 > 0:26:05He didn't know how I loved him.

0:26:06 > 0:26:11And finally, when I got home and saw Guy Johnson... Oh, my land.

0:26:11 > 0:26:13The reunion was so sweet.

0:26:15 > 0:26:21There was a play opening in New York and I was asked to come to New York

0:26:21 > 0:26:23and to audition.

0:26:23 > 0:26:29My mother had a chance to do the understudy in Hello, Dolly!

0:26:29 > 0:26:31with Pearl Bailey as the lead.

0:26:33 > 0:26:39For my mother it would have meant living continuously in New York

0:26:39 > 0:26:43without leaving me for at least a year.

0:26:43 > 0:26:45And it was regular money.

0:26:47 > 0:26:52The director and the producer both loved her...

0:26:53 > 0:26:58..but Pearl Bailey came back and said, "Oh, no,

0:26:58 > 0:27:01"I ain't going to have this big, old ugly girl be my understudy."

0:27:03 > 0:27:06There are very few times in my life that I remember my mother crying...

0:27:09 > 0:27:12..because this meant she had to go back out on the road

0:27:12 > 0:27:14and find other work.

0:27:14 > 0:27:16It was devastating...

0:27:17 > 0:27:22..because I knew all the sacrifices my mother made to keep me.

0:27:24 > 0:27:2935 years later, when Pearl Bailey was getting a lifetime award

0:27:29 > 0:27:33and they asked her, "Who do you want to give it to you?"

0:27:34 > 0:27:35She said, "Maya Angelou."

0:27:37 > 0:27:40And guess who gave it to her and never said a damn thing?!

0:27:46 > 0:27:48For the next year and a half,

0:27:48 > 0:27:52save for my short, out-of-town singing engagements,

0:27:52 > 0:27:53I began to write.

0:27:53 > 0:27:58At first I limited myself to short sketches, then to song lyrics,

0:27:58 > 0:28:01then I dared short stories.

0:28:01 > 0:28:06I had met Langston Hughes in California, and John Killens.

0:28:06 > 0:28:09And they both said, because I was writing, they said,

0:28:09 > 0:28:13"Come to New York, come to New York and join the Harlem Writers Guild.

0:28:13 > 0:28:17"Let us criticise you and tell you how good you are or how bad you are

0:28:17 > 0:28:19"and we'll see."

0:28:29 > 0:28:30Playwrights and writers

0:28:30 > 0:28:33have all gone through the Harlem Writers Guild.

0:28:33 > 0:28:34People asked what was going on?

0:28:34 > 0:28:38We were just writing, trying to get our work written and published.

0:28:38 > 0:28:43Then you come to the group and what you want is the criticism.

0:28:43 > 0:28:45And the criticism is always constructive.

0:28:45 > 0:28:47You don't want to go out and tear your thing up

0:28:47 > 0:28:49and throw yourself into the river, you know.

0:28:51 > 0:28:53And of course Lewis Michaux had Michaux's bookstore

0:28:53 > 0:28:55on 125th and 7th.

0:28:55 > 0:29:00And that was a very, very important place.

0:29:00 > 0:29:04Maya, Rosa Guy, Louise Meriwether...

0:29:04 > 0:29:07Max Roach, Paule Marshall was there in that group.

0:29:08 > 0:29:11I must say that we loved bars, all of us loved bars.

0:29:11 > 0:29:14Me, Rosa, Maya - we are bar-stool people.

0:29:16 > 0:29:21Right on the corner of 96th Street and Columbus Avenue was a grill,

0:29:21 > 0:29:25and James Baldwin's brother worked there as a bartender.

0:29:25 > 0:29:28James Baldwin was never in the Harlem Writers Guild.

0:29:28 > 0:29:32He was, you know, in France, but any time he would be in town,

0:29:32 > 0:29:34he would be at that bar.

0:29:37 > 0:29:42I first met James Baldwin in Paris in the early '50s.

0:29:42 > 0:29:45I was with Porgy and Bess.

0:29:45 > 0:29:48And I met him, he was small and...

0:29:49 > 0:29:52..hot, dancing himself.

0:29:52 > 0:29:56I mean, his movements were always the movements of a dancer.

0:29:56 > 0:30:01So when I met Jimmy, well, we liked each other.

0:30:03 > 0:30:08I remember the respect that they gave one another.

0:30:08 > 0:30:10The excitement that they both are expressing themselves,

0:30:10 > 0:30:12they're both brilliant people in a room,

0:30:12 > 0:30:15after a couple of drinks saying what they really feel.

0:30:16 > 0:30:19I'm a kind of poet and I come out of...

0:30:21 > 0:30:24..a certain place, a certain time, a certain history.

0:30:24 > 0:30:26- You know?- Right.

0:30:26 > 0:30:27And the people who produced me...

0:30:27 > 0:30:31James Baldwin was merely my mother's friend, Jimmy.

0:30:33 > 0:30:36I had no idea the majesty of his work at the time.

0:30:38 > 0:30:43What I recall is my mother coming home after conversations with him,

0:30:43 > 0:30:46and talking about what she was going to do

0:30:46 > 0:30:49as a result of having met with him.

0:30:49 > 0:30:51What Jimmy was, was angry.

0:30:51 > 0:30:56He was angry at injustice, at ignorance, at exploitation,

0:30:56 > 0:30:59at stupidity, at vulgarity.

0:30:59 > 0:31:01Yes, he was angry.

0:31:01 > 0:31:03I don't know what most white people in this country feel,

0:31:03 > 0:31:06I can only conclude what they feel

0:31:06 > 0:31:07from the state of their institutions.

0:31:07 > 0:31:10I don't know whether the labour unions and their bosses

0:31:10 > 0:31:11really hate me.

0:31:11 > 0:31:14That doesn't matter, but I know I'm not in their unions.

0:31:14 > 0:31:17I don't know if the Board of Education hates black people

0:31:17 > 0:31:19but I know the textbooks they give my children to read

0:31:19 > 0:31:21and the schools that we have to go to.

0:31:21 > 0:31:23Now, this is the evidence.

0:31:23 > 0:31:27You want me to make an act of faith on some idealism

0:31:27 > 0:31:29which you assure me exists in America,

0:31:29 > 0:31:30which I have never seen.

0:31:30 > 0:31:32APPLAUSE

0:31:34 > 0:31:38It was the awakening summer of 1960

0:31:38 > 0:31:41and the entire country was in labour.

0:31:41 > 0:31:45Something wonderful was about to be born and we were all going to be

0:31:45 > 0:31:47good parents to the welcome child.

0:31:48 > 0:31:49Its name was freedom.

0:31:49 > 0:31:54We have no alternative but to keep moving with determination.

0:31:56 > 0:31:59We've gone too far now to turn back.

0:32:01 > 0:32:07Dr King came to New York to speak, at Riverside Church,

0:32:07 > 0:32:10and I went with friends and we were so moved.

0:32:10 > 0:32:12He was just... He was irresistible.

0:32:12 > 0:32:17And his idea of non-violence was absolutely

0:32:17 > 0:32:19what I had been waiting for.

0:32:20 > 0:32:24I had lived around so much violence and been myself violated,

0:32:24 > 0:32:27and when Reverend King came and said

0:32:27 > 0:32:31we can change the world with non-violence,

0:32:31 > 0:32:35it was like pouring water on a parched desert.

0:32:35 > 0:32:38I needed that, and I was ready for it.

0:32:38 > 0:32:41And so I and Godfrey Cambridge, a comedian,

0:32:41 > 0:32:46wrote a piece called Cabaret for Freedom to raise money

0:32:46 > 0:32:49and we gave it to the Southern Christian Leadership Conference

0:32:49 > 0:32:51in New York.

0:32:51 > 0:32:55Bayard Rustin suggested that I be asked to come in

0:32:55 > 0:32:58as the northern coordinator

0:32:58 > 0:33:01of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

0:33:01 > 0:33:05And Reverend King came, and he reminded me of my brother.

0:33:05 > 0:33:09Small, beautiful speaking voice.

0:33:10 > 0:33:15So when Dr King sat in my office, he became a big brother.

0:33:15 > 0:33:18I became a little girl again.

0:33:22 > 0:33:24When Harlem became politicised,

0:33:24 > 0:33:28really politicised in the '50s and '60s,

0:33:28 > 0:33:29it was so amazing.

0:33:31 > 0:33:34It was a crazy time in Harlem.

0:33:34 > 0:33:38Mr Michaux's bookshop was right in the middle of everything.

0:33:38 > 0:33:43He'd have 500 people out in front of his bookshop as they'd be talking.

0:33:43 > 0:33:45And I didn't know it was the precursor...

0:33:46 > 0:33:47..to Malcolm.

0:33:47 > 0:33:50When America says "In God we trust",

0:33:50 > 0:33:55she means she trusts in that white God who showed her how to steal

0:33:55 > 0:33:59this country from the dark skinned Indians, who showed her how to

0:33:59 > 0:34:03kidnap you and me and bring us over here and make us slaves.

0:34:03 > 0:34:09When I use the term God, I'm speaking about our God,

0:34:09 > 0:34:14the God of our forefathers, the black man's God.

0:34:14 > 0:34:19I saw her with Malcolm X from time to time and people like that.

0:34:19 > 0:34:23But I remember her being very angry, very angry, to tears.

0:34:25 > 0:34:29Because she was fighting the devil, the white devil as she called it.

0:34:31 > 0:34:35It was the time of afros, dashikis,

0:34:35 > 0:34:39a re-establishment of the African and American black roots.

0:34:42 > 0:34:46Many African Americans made friends with Africans who had come to

0:34:46 > 0:34:52United Nations. They got whisky and drinks and invited African Americans

0:34:52 > 0:34:55to the parties. It was wonderful.

0:34:55 > 0:34:57We made friends.

0:34:57 > 0:34:59Now that Africa is getting independent and in a position

0:34:59 > 0:35:01to create its own image,

0:35:01 > 0:35:03those of us in the west look at the African image

0:35:03 > 0:35:06and see how positive it is and we begin to identify with it.

0:35:06 > 0:35:09We become proud of our African blood, our African heritage.

0:35:09 > 0:35:12And your western imperialists and colonialists

0:35:12 > 0:35:14consider this to be a grave threat.

0:35:14 > 0:35:21And then we heard that Patrice Lumumba from the Congo

0:35:21 > 0:35:22had been killed.

0:35:24 > 0:35:27NEWSREEL: This was Patrice Lumumba in June, 1960.

0:35:27 > 0:35:29The premiere of the new Congo Republic

0:35:29 > 0:35:33waiting for the ceremonies that would mark Congolese independence.

0:35:33 > 0:35:36Less than two weeks in the future lay the army mutiny

0:35:36 > 0:35:38that would plunge the Congo into near chaos.

0:35:38 > 0:35:40Colonel Joseph Mobutu,

0:35:40 > 0:35:42whose forces seize Lumumba at the beginning of December.

0:35:44 > 0:35:50And the African Americans took it as if Patrice Lumumba was in fact

0:35:50 > 0:35:53an African American right off 125th Street.

0:35:56 > 0:35:59We started asking people in Harlem

0:35:59 > 0:36:02to come down to United Nations and protest.

0:36:04 > 0:36:09People who had never been down to Times Square, people born in Harlem,

0:36:09 > 0:36:14full of anger at the way Africans were treated on their homeland.

0:36:17 > 0:36:21We filled the General Assembly at United Nations.

0:36:21 > 0:36:23Adlai Stevenson was at the desk.

0:36:23 > 0:36:28We believe that the only way to keep the cold war out of the Congo

0:36:28 > 0:36:31is to keep the United Nations in the Congo.

0:36:31 > 0:36:37And, at one point, Rosa Guy's sister screamed, "Murderer!"

0:36:37 > 0:36:38at the top of her voice.

0:36:44 > 0:36:47Whereupon all the people got up and started fighting.

0:36:49 > 0:36:51NEWSREEL: The speech is interrupted

0:36:51 > 0:36:54by a well organised demonstration in the gallery.

0:36:54 > 0:36:57Most of the group are American Negros,

0:36:57 > 0:37:00members of African nationalist groups in New York.

0:37:01 > 0:37:03My mother taught me a love of justice...

0:37:06 > 0:37:08..a love of doing what's right.

0:37:08 > 0:37:13She said to me, "If you really have something to protest,

0:37:13 > 0:37:15"you should be on the streets."

0:37:16 > 0:37:21My mother was leading this demonstration and I was with her.

0:37:21 > 0:37:26We were protesting the damage done to people in the South

0:37:26 > 0:37:29who had gone down there for the freedom riots,

0:37:29 > 0:37:32and we had about 400 people.

0:37:33 > 0:37:37Three blocks away, the mounted police pull into the street...

0:37:38 > 0:37:40..in formation.

0:37:40 > 0:37:45People in the demonstration began going to the sidewalk.

0:37:46 > 0:37:49Because in those days they ran over people, they stomped them,

0:37:49 > 0:37:52trampled them and left their bodies in the street.

0:37:55 > 0:37:58And I was looking at my mother and she...

0:37:58 > 0:38:00We kept on.

0:38:00 > 0:38:04And I said, "Ma, come on, you're going to get us killed, let's go."

0:38:04 > 0:38:07She turned to me and she said,

0:38:07 > 0:38:12"One person standing on the word of God is the majority."

0:38:12 > 0:38:15I looked at her and I thought, "You really have gone crazy!"

0:38:16 > 0:38:21The sergeant in charge started to walk past us.

0:38:21 > 0:38:25My mother pulled out this big hairpin out of her headband

0:38:25 > 0:38:28and stuck it in the sergeant's horse.

0:38:29 > 0:38:35The sergeant's horse neighed and reared up, the sergeant fell off,

0:38:35 > 0:38:39the people came back from the sidewalk and we finished that march.

0:38:41 > 0:38:46Whew, hadn't seen courage like that.

0:38:46 > 0:38:48Brought right up to my face.

0:38:50 > 0:38:52She took me on a trip or two.

0:38:56 > 0:39:03I first saw Maya in 1961 at the St Mark's Theatre in the Village

0:39:03 > 0:39:05when she played in Genet's The Blacks.

0:39:06 > 0:39:13The Blacks was a piece that really shook everyone,

0:39:13 > 0:39:18it started avant-garde theatre in this country.

0:39:18 > 0:39:23Genet set aside six actors who were black,

0:39:23 > 0:39:29six actors who were also black but wore white masks

0:39:29 > 0:39:32representing the whites.

0:39:32 > 0:39:35Maya played the white queen.

0:39:35 > 0:39:37The combination of Queen Elizabeth

0:39:37 > 0:39:41and all of the white female royalty of Europe.

0:39:41 > 0:39:45One of her lines was, "I am the lilywhite queen of the west,

0:39:45 > 0:39:48"centuries and centuries of breeding."

0:39:48 > 0:39:51And it erased the consciousness of race to such a degree

0:39:51 > 0:39:54that it's called the theatre of the absurd.

0:39:54 > 0:39:56Racism is absurd.

0:39:58 > 0:40:02It's interesting that black people can play white people,

0:40:02 > 0:40:04the good and the bad,

0:40:04 > 0:40:08because we've had centuries of having to study their faces,

0:40:08 > 0:40:14understand that a smile could mean "You get flogged today."

0:40:14 > 0:40:19Or a frown can mean, "I'm selling you off to Mississippi", you see?

0:40:19 > 0:40:23The whites, of course, reigned above,

0:40:23 > 0:40:27they were on a ramp that was six feet into the air.

0:40:28 > 0:40:31The blacks were on the ground.

0:40:31 > 0:40:38And each one of the whites would come down the ramp and offer

0:40:38 > 0:40:42their objections to blacks even existing.

0:40:44 > 0:40:50And as it happened, they were killed by the blacks, each one of them.

0:40:52 > 0:40:55And as they descended, the blacks ascended...

0:40:57 > 0:40:59..and they took power.

0:41:02 > 0:41:04Some whites got up and walked out.

0:41:04 > 0:41:06Some blacks got up and walked out.

0:41:06 > 0:41:11One man was running so fast, he fell downstairs and broke his leg.

0:41:11 > 0:41:14One woman fainted, a man had a heart attack.

0:41:14 > 0:41:19Well, I think it brought to mind for the first time,

0:41:19 > 0:41:24to many white people, that they were responsible

0:41:24 > 0:41:30for most of our anguish because of their ignorance.

0:41:30 > 0:41:34I remember walking out of that play and being ashamed of being white.

0:41:36 > 0:41:39I was so taken by its polemic.

0:41:41 > 0:41:45At that time Maya was searching desperately for her African roots,

0:41:45 > 0:41:47upon whose shoulder she stood.

0:41:47 > 0:41:51Maya met Vus Make at the United Nations -

0:41:51 > 0:41:54an attraction ensued.

0:41:54 > 0:41:57I went to John Killens' house one evening

0:41:57 > 0:42:00and there was a South African, a freedom fighter.

0:42:00 > 0:42:06Now I've always been a patsy for men who could think.

0:42:06 > 0:42:11Oh, goodness. And this man just opened up his brain

0:42:11 > 0:42:13and he was fabulous.

0:42:13 > 0:42:15Well, I thought it was very odd.

0:42:18 > 0:42:21But I remember when she was introduced to him,

0:42:21 > 0:42:26here was this Maya up here at eight feet tall and here he was, right,

0:42:26 > 0:42:30and she took him by the collar and she...

0:42:32 > 0:42:36And kissed him in the mouth and said, "You're going to be my...

0:42:38 > 0:42:40"..husband."

0:42:40 > 0:42:41And he was.

0:42:41 > 0:42:43SHE CONTINUES LAUGHING

0:42:43 > 0:42:47Our plane landed at Cairo on a clear afternoon,

0:42:47 > 0:42:49and just beyond the windows,

0:42:49 > 0:42:55the Sahara was a rippling beige sea which had no shore.

0:42:55 > 0:42:58He was working for the Pan Africanist Congress,

0:42:58 > 0:43:02the South African Freedom Movement.

0:43:02 > 0:43:06You had South African exiles all over the place in those days.

0:43:06 > 0:43:09He was the representative in Egypt.

0:43:13 > 0:43:15Maya and Vus lived in Cairo...

0:43:16 > 0:43:18..where she wrote for newspapers.

0:43:20 > 0:43:22But they could not sustain the relationship.

0:43:24 > 0:43:26Vus was trying and so was I,

0:43:26 > 0:43:32but neither of us was able to infuse vitality into our wilting marriage.

0:43:32 > 0:43:36We had worn our marriage threadbare, and it was time to discard it.

0:43:37 > 0:43:41I knew that other women would be in that house before the sheets

0:43:41 > 0:43:43lost my body's heat.

0:43:46 > 0:43:51I was living in Cairo and my son had finished high school.

0:43:52 > 0:43:54He was 17.

0:43:54 > 0:43:58He wanted to go to the university in Ghana.

0:43:58 > 0:44:01Their first day there,

0:44:01 > 0:44:05friends took him out for a drive and let him see the countryside.

0:44:06 > 0:44:09And a truck ran into his car.

0:44:11 > 0:44:14A doctor studied the x-rays and she said,

0:44:14 > 0:44:18"A hard sneeze and he could be dead," because his neck was broken.

0:44:20 > 0:44:22I broke my neck in Cape Coast.

0:44:23 > 0:44:27In those days there was no hospital in Cape Coast.

0:44:29 > 0:44:33A couple in a Volkswagen saw the accident,

0:44:33 > 0:44:40they piled me in the back and drove me four-and-a-half hours to Accra,

0:44:40 > 0:44:43where I woke four days later.

0:44:43 > 0:44:47I was told that he would never walk again and I said,

0:44:47 > 0:44:51"With the help of God, my son will walk out of the hospital."

0:44:54 > 0:44:57He was in intensive care so I was there and I said,

0:44:57 > 0:44:58"I see you walking."

0:44:58 > 0:45:02He said "Mom, that which I feared is upon me.

0:45:02 > 0:45:06"Mother, I have to ask you something no-one should ever ask a mother.

0:45:06 > 0:45:08"You're my best friend.

0:45:08 > 0:45:11"Mother, if there's no recovery, pull the plug, let me go."

0:45:13 > 0:45:16I started shouting, "Then I see you talking, laughing,

0:45:16 > 0:45:18"I see you swimming."

0:45:18 > 0:45:22He said, "Mom, please, there's some sick people in this place.

0:45:22 > 0:45:23"Don't make so much noise."

0:45:23 > 0:45:27And about the sixth day, a nurse came in, she said,

0:45:27 > 0:45:31"Miss Angelou, come with me."

0:45:31 > 0:45:35She pulled the blankets off my son's feet

0:45:35 > 0:45:37and his toes went like that.

0:45:51 > 0:45:54It virtually destroyed her.

0:45:54 > 0:45:59I think she felt if she was there she could have prevented it

0:45:59 > 0:46:01for some reason or another.

0:46:01 > 0:46:05I had some pictures I had taken at the picnic,

0:46:05 > 0:46:11really the last day of Guy's full physical health

0:46:11 > 0:46:15and so I made copies for her, I thought she might like to have them.

0:46:15 > 0:46:17And when I showed them to her,

0:46:17 > 0:46:21she became very upset and she just pushed them away.

0:46:21 > 0:46:25Her reaction let me know how painful that still was for her,

0:46:25 > 0:46:27so many years later.

0:46:28 > 0:46:31She decided to stay in Ghana.

0:46:31 > 0:46:36I was already living at the YWCA hostel and I knew they had space.

0:46:43 > 0:46:45Ghana was exciting at that time.

0:46:47 > 0:46:51Kwame Nkrumah was the president and he projected

0:46:51 > 0:46:53the African personality.

0:46:53 > 0:46:59He had studied at Lincoln University in the United States and he had

0:46:59 > 0:47:01sort of extended an invitation.

0:47:01 > 0:47:04There were African Americans who had moved to Ghana.

0:47:04 > 0:47:09Dr WB DuBois, one of the great thinkers of our time,

0:47:09 > 0:47:11had come to Ghana to live.

0:47:11 > 0:47:14Then I went to work in the university.

0:47:14 > 0:47:19There were so many Ghanaians who has studied abroad.

0:47:19 > 0:47:23Many people came to teach at the university.

0:47:23 > 0:47:27You could get into any kind of discussion on any subject

0:47:27 > 0:47:32in Ghana at the time, in-depth conversations.

0:47:32 > 0:47:34Maya was very well known in Ghana.

0:47:34 > 0:47:37She also liked to entertain.

0:47:37 > 0:47:39So we had parties at the house.

0:47:39 > 0:47:43Constant parties. We had one hell of a good time.

0:47:44 > 0:47:49You could call people and ask them to come over for breakfast and they

0:47:49 > 0:47:54would come in tens and twenties and you could make hotcakes and waffles

0:47:54 > 0:47:57and some people had never had them before.

0:47:57 > 0:48:00It was just... It was a great place to live.

0:48:07 > 0:48:12When Malcolm X came to Ghana, the African Americans who were there,

0:48:12 > 0:48:16we gathered around him like his children.

0:48:16 > 0:48:19And he liked me and we liked each other.

0:48:19 > 0:48:23I met Malcolm X at my mother's house in Ghana.

0:48:23 > 0:48:27My mother went out and bought about six chickens,

0:48:27 > 0:48:30and she rarely fried chicken,

0:48:30 > 0:48:33and I was almost sorry to meet Malcolm X

0:48:33 > 0:48:37because the chicken was so good and I had to share it with him.

0:48:37 > 0:48:42But the thing about Malcolm is, for a person of his stature,

0:48:42 > 0:48:47for me to ask a question and for him to think about it and then come back

0:48:47 > 0:48:48with an answer...

0:48:51 > 0:48:57..captured my heart. And his answers were so phenomenal.

0:48:57 > 0:49:02We wanted to meet so he could tell us what was going on in the States

0:49:02 > 0:49:03and what his plans were.

0:49:03 > 0:49:10And we found out that his quest was to find an African government

0:49:10 > 0:49:15that would take the United Nations genocide convention

0:49:15 > 0:49:20and make a charge against the United States.

0:49:20 > 0:49:24African nations and Asian nations and Latin American nations look very

0:49:24 > 0:49:29hypocritical when they stand up in the United Nations condemning the

0:49:29 > 0:49:33racist practices of South Africa and saying nothing in the UN about the

0:49:33 > 0:49:39racist practices manifest every day against Negros in this society.

0:49:39 > 0:49:42This is Maya with me,

0:49:42 > 0:49:47and our delegation went into the American Embassy in Ghana

0:49:47 > 0:49:51to deliver our petition condemning the United States.

0:49:51 > 0:49:53Have you had any commitment from any nations in Africa

0:49:53 > 0:49:54to support your...?

0:49:54 > 0:49:57I would rather not say at this time.

0:49:57 > 0:50:00In fact, we couldn't get any African government to bring any charge

0:50:00 > 0:50:06against the US because of the American money, the cash.

0:50:10 > 0:50:14He wanted to see as much as he could see of the African continent.

0:50:15 > 0:50:20He said in Ghana, "I've gone to Mecca, I've taken the Hajj.

0:50:22 > 0:50:28"And I have met men with hair blonde as corn silk

0:50:28 > 0:50:33"and their faces as white as milk,

0:50:33 > 0:50:36"and I have been able to call them brother.

0:50:36 > 0:50:39"So, obviously, I was wrong.

0:50:39 > 0:50:43"All white people are not blue eyed devils."

0:50:43 > 0:50:45Now it takes a lot of courage to say to the world,

0:50:45 > 0:50:47"You remember everything I said last week?

0:50:47 > 0:50:50"Well, I don't believe that any more.

0:50:50 > 0:50:54"I want to have enough sense to see the new thing and enough courage

0:50:54 > 0:50:55"to say the new thing."

0:50:57 > 0:51:00I loved him so much.

0:51:00 > 0:51:04Maya came back because she wanted to work with Malcolm.

0:51:04 > 0:51:06GUNSHOTS

0:51:11 > 0:51:14So she was shattered that he was murdered

0:51:14 > 0:51:17before she really had a chance to talk to him.

0:51:19 > 0:51:21For me, I had two heroes.

0:51:22 > 0:51:23Malcolm and...

0:51:24 > 0:51:26..Dr King.

0:51:26 > 0:51:27They were the people...

0:51:28 > 0:51:30..that I would've looked to...

0:51:31 > 0:51:32..to lead.

0:51:34 > 0:51:36Martin Luther King...

0:51:38 > 0:51:40..was killed on my birthday.

0:51:42 > 0:51:47I had worked for him as his northern representative and he had asked me

0:51:47 > 0:51:50to come back and I was going to go back and then...

0:51:50 > 0:51:52NEWSREADER: Dr Martin Luther King,

0:51:52 > 0:51:55the apostle of nonviolence and the Civil Rights Movement,

0:51:55 > 0:51:58has been shot to death in Memphis, Tennessee.

0:51:58 > 0:52:02Police rushed the 39-year-old negro leader to a hospital where he died

0:52:02 > 0:52:04of a bullet wound in the neck.

0:52:07 > 0:52:10It just, just knocked me out.

0:52:13 > 0:52:15And I fell into mutism again.

0:52:16 > 0:52:17I just...

0:52:19 > 0:52:22..just couldn't bring myself.

0:52:22 > 0:52:26And finally after about five days, James Baldwin came to my house.

0:52:26 > 0:52:30Bam-bam-bam on the door, "Open this hmm-hmm-hmm door.

0:52:30 > 0:52:32"I'll call the police."

0:52:32 > 0:52:37So I opened the door and he came in, he saw I was really unkempt

0:52:37 > 0:52:43and my house was a mess and I've always left a pretty house and...

0:52:43 > 0:52:45He said "Go take a shower, put some clothes on,

0:52:45 > 0:52:47"I'm taking you somewhere."

0:52:47 > 0:52:53We went to Jules Feiffer's house, the cartoonist.

0:52:53 > 0:52:57And Jules Feiffer and Judy Feiffer, his then wife, told stories,

0:52:57 > 0:52:59and Baldwin told stories.

0:52:59 > 0:53:03And Baldwin asked me, "Tell a little bit about your grandma.

0:53:03 > 0:53:05"Tell a little bit about Stamps, Arkansas."

0:53:05 > 0:53:12So I started by saying, "In Arkansas, racism was so prevalent

0:53:12 > 0:53:15"that black people couldn't even eat vanilla ice cream."

0:53:17 > 0:53:20And so it made everybody laugh!

0:53:20 > 0:53:23And they asked me to tell that story, tell another.

0:53:23 > 0:53:24She was absolutely captivating,

0:53:24 > 0:53:28and she just told these stories in a very matter of fact...

0:53:28 > 0:53:31There was nothing show off-y about it.

0:53:31 > 0:53:35Judy Feiffer, the next morning, called Random House

0:53:35 > 0:53:39and talked to Bob Loomis. This was 1968.

0:53:39 > 0:53:42She called me one day and she said,

0:53:42 > 0:53:47at their house the night before they had a party and this woman,

0:53:47 > 0:53:49Maya Angelou, was there.

0:53:49 > 0:53:53Now in that group there are some wonderful talkers.

0:53:53 > 0:53:57Jules... I think Philip Roth was at that party.

0:53:57 > 0:54:01But Judy said this woman told the best stories.

0:54:01 > 0:54:04They were stories of adventure that she had.

0:54:04 > 0:54:10They were stories about her career in nightclubs in California.

0:54:10 > 0:54:15On and on and she said, "She's got a book in her of some kind."

0:54:15 > 0:54:19Well, I hate to tell you how many times I've heard that.

0:54:19 > 0:54:23But I called Maya, she was in California, I believe, then.

0:54:24 > 0:54:27I brought up the subject, she was not warm to it.

0:54:27 > 0:54:29He said "Would you write an autobiography?"

0:54:29 > 0:54:32I said "No, thank you, no, no, I don't...

0:54:32 > 0:54:35"I write poetry and I have plays."

0:54:36 > 0:54:42I had written a ten-episode series for PBS.

0:54:42 > 0:54:44So I went out to San Francisco to produce it.

0:54:47 > 0:54:50Hello, my name is Maya Angelou.

0:54:52 > 0:54:56'And Bob Loomis called me about three or four times.

0:54:56 > 0:54:59'Oh, he harassed me for about six months.'

0:54:59 > 0:55:04Now, in those days, the younger people and somewhat unknown people

0:55:04 > 0:55:06did not write books.

0:55:06 > 0:55:07I called several more times...

0:55:09 > 0:55:10..got nowhere.

0:55:12 > 0:55:17And finally, he said, "Miss Angelou, I won't call you again."

0:55:17 > 0:55:21I said, "That's good." He said, "Because, you know,

0:55:21 > 0:55:24"writing autobiography as literature is almost impossible."

0:55:26 > 0:55:28I said, "Well...

0:55:28 > 0:55:30"Well, in that case, I'll try."

0:55:32 > 0:55:35And, believe it or not, she started to write.

0:55:35 > 0:55:39It needed some work, but it was only because,

0:55:39 > 0:55:42in a true sense, she was an amateur.

0:55:42 > 0:55:45Amateur, you know, means someone who loves something.

0:55:45 > 0:55:48It doesn't mean you're not good.

0:55:48 > 0:55:52And we also decided that although she'd done a lot in her career,

0:55:52 > 0:55:55that she should try, maybe, just to write about her childhood.

0:55:57 > 0:55:58So, she began.

0:56:00 > 0:56:03"When I was three and Bailey four,

0:56:03 > 0:56:05"we had arrived in the musty little town,

0:56:05 > 0:56:08"wearing tags which instructed that

0:56:08 > 0:56:11"we were Marguerite and Bailey Johnson, Jr."

0:56:11 > 0:56:15She was able to go way back and remember,

0:56:15 > 0:56:18in a very meaningful way, things that, I think,

0:56:18 > 0:56:19she'd never told anybody.

0:56:24 > 0:56:28When we first published Caged Bird, it was a new genre,

0:56:28 > 0:56:29she was a new writer.

0:56:31 > 0:56:35Sales at first were not what I thought they should be.

0:56:35 > 0:56:39It turned out to be a landmark book,

0:56:39 > 0:56:41still a touchstone for a lot of people.

0:56:46 > 0:56:47I felt it was...

0:56:47 > 0:56:52me, I felt it was a girl sitting next to me.

0:56:52 > 0:56:55It reflected my own mother's life,

0:56:55 > 0:56:59which was a life of neglect and mistreatment and abuse.

0:56:59 > 0:57:01And I gave a copy to my mother.

0:57:01 > 0:57:04I met Bill Clinton and one of the first things we talked about

0:57:04 > 0:57:05was that book.

0:57:05 > 0:57:10When I read it, I couldn't believe that these things happened to her

0:57:10 > 0:57:14and that she was free enough to talk about them.

0:57:14 > 0:57:17I'd never heard of another

0:57:17 > 0:57:19black woman, young girl,

0:57:19 > 0:57:21who had been raped.

0:57:21 > 0:57:23So I read those words and thought,

0:57:23 > 0:57:25"Somebody knows who I am."

0:57:29 > 0:57:33Here is a black woman who takes off the cuffs.

0:57:33 > 0:57:35Here's a black woman

0:57:35 > 0:57:37who writes her story.

0:57:38 > 0:57:43It was a very important literary feat, because it said -

0:57:43 > 0:57:48it's OK for a black woman to say what happened to her,

0:57:48 > 0:57:51in public, in a literary form.

0:57:51 > 0:57:53What she did, and it's not easy,

0:57:53 > 0:57:58was find a way of replicating who and what she was on paper.

0:57:58 > 0:58:01And a lot of writers can't do that.

0:58:01 > 0:58:02I thought...

0:58:02 > 0:58:05from the time she was very young,

0:58:05 > 0:58:07she was always paying attention.

0:58:07 > 0:58:09She just didn't miss much.

0:58:09 > 0:58:13And that's a great gift, because if you're really paying attention

0:58:13 > 0:58:17and then you can put it into words,

0:58:17 > 0:58:22you can empower other people as they absorb your experience.

0:58:22 > 0:58:25She said, "You know, sometimes when I'm acting,

0:58:25 > 0:58:28"I see myself acting.

0:58:28 > 0:58:32"But when I write, I'm lost completely in what I'm doing.

0:58:32 > 0:58:36"There's nothing else but that."

0:58:36 > 0:58:41In fact, she even hibernates when she writes, she often rents a room.

0:58:41 > 0:58:43I know she likes to, you know,

0:58:43 > 0:58:45have that room in the hotel,

0:58:45 > 0:58:48where, you know, she takes her, her cards,

0:58:48 > 0:58:50that yellow legal pad.

0:58:50 > 0:58:53All of her life, Maya wrote in long hand.

0:58:53 > 0:58:56She'd sit down with a Bible and a thesaurus

0:58:56 > 0:58:59and she makes draft, after draft, after draft, after draft.

0:58:59 > 0:59:02Just a desk, a chair, a pen

0:59:02 > 0:59:04and maybe some Johnny Walker.

0:59:04 > 0:59:06Jack Daniels.

0:59:06 > 0:59:07Scotch.

0:59:07 > 0:59:10She's a singer, she's a writer,

0:59:10 > 0:59:13she's a poet, and yet the books are not precious,

0:59:13 > 0:59:19they do not sound contrived or too ornate, they're very simple.

0:59:19 > 0:59:24That's what's so hard to do and do it well.

0:59:24 > 0:59:27'Autobiography is awfully seductive.

0:59:27 > 0:59:31'Once I really got into it, I realised that I was following

0:59:31 > 0:59:36'a tradition established by Frederick Douglass,

0:59:36 > 0:59:38'which is the slave narrative.

0:59:38 > 0:59:41'Speaking in the first person singular,

0:59:41 > 0:59:44'talking about the third person plural.

0:59:44 > 0:59:47'Always saying "I", meaning "we." '

0:59:48 > 0:59:52Her language base was classical.

0:59:53 > 0:59:56See, Maya didn't read modern poetry until later,

0:59:56 > 1:00:00and that's a lot of people who come from country do that,

1:00:00 > 1:00:02cos they're not exposed to modern poetry!

1:00:02 > 1:00:06Reading the older writers mean that your language

1:00:06 > 1:00:08is going to be archaic.

1:00:09 > 1:00:13And there's nothing wrong with writing Caged Bird

1:00:13 > 1:00:17in a language that's partially Victorian and biblical.

1:00:19 > 1:00:24Everybody in the world uses words,

1:00:24 > 1:00:26uses, "How are you? Fine, thank you."

1:00:26 > 1:00:30Verbs, adverbs, adjectives, nouns, pronouns.

1:00:30 > 1:00:34The writer has to take these most known things

1:00:34 > 1:00:38and put them together in such a way that a reader says,

1:00:38 > 1:00:42"I never thought of it that way before".

1:00:43 > 1:00:44It's a challenge.

1:00:44 > 1:00:47And I know many writers, and I'm one, who says,

1:00:47 > 1:00:50"Lord, are you sure you wanted me to do this?"

1:00:50 > 1:00:53At that point in her life, Maya was, you know,

1:00:53 > 1:00:55climbing up the ladder of success.

1:00:55 > 1:00:59I mean, she was being acknowledged as a writer.

1:00:59 > 1:01:02She had met Paul

1:01:02 > 1:01:04and Paul was very supportive of her.

1:01:06 > 1:01:11Years ago, I fell in love with a man, who, I'm happy to say,

1:01:11 > 1:01:13was in love with me.

1:01:13 > 1:01:16And we lived together in great harmony,

1:01:16 > 1:01:19out in California.

1:01:19 > 1:01:21But then he wanted to get married,

1:01:21 > 1:01:24and I don't care much for the institution,

1:01:24 > 1:01:27but he insisted.

1:01:27 > 1:01:29And so, I called Jimmy.

1:01:29 > 1:01:33He said, "Does your reluctance to marry him have anything

1:01:33 > 1:01:34"to do with his being white?"

1:01:36 > 1:01:38So, I said...

1:01:39 > 1:01:40"..Maybe."

1:01:42 > 1:01:45He said, "But his being white didn't keep you from falling in love

1:01:45 > 1:01:46"with him?"

1:01:46 > 1:01:50I said, "No." He said, "But it keeps you from making a public statement

1:01:50 > 1:01:52"of your love, is that it?"

1:01:52 > 1:01:54I said, "I suppose so.

1:01:54 > 1:01:59"People - I mean, my people - you know, what will they say?"

1:01:59 > 1:02:04He said, "Maya Angelou, you talk about courage all the time.

1:02:04 > 1:02:06"You tell everybody else to dare to love,

1:02:06 > 1:02:09"but you don't have the courage.

1:02:09 > 1:02:11"Are you a hypocrite?"

1:02:11 > 1:02:15And he talked to me harder than he'd ever talked to me before.

1:02:15 > 1:02:18"So, what the hell you going to do, girl?"

1:02:18 > 1:02:22I said, "I'm going to marry the man, what to do?"

1:02:22 > 1:02:23I finally married my own husband.

1:02:23 > 1:02:26My mother has a theory that most people marry

1:02:26 > 1:02:27other people's husbands.

1:02:27 > 1:02:28How many husbands?

1:02:28 > 1:02:29I've had enough.

1:02:29 > 1:02:31THEY LAUGH

1:02:31 > 1:02:33But I finally have my own.

1:02:33 > 1:02:35- I'm a woman!- You's a woman now.

1:02:35 > 1:02:39I'm a woman, and I was looking for a man.

1:02:39 > 1:02:40What is your husband's name?

1:02:40 > 1:02:42Paul du Feu.

1:02:42 > 1:02:43du Feu.

1:02:46 > 1:02:51Paul du Feu was a very interesting guy.

1:02:52 > 1:02:57He had come out of England, out of the construction industry,

1:02:57 > 1:02:59and he was a writer.

1:02:59 > 1:03:02He had a tendency to drink...

1:03:04 > 1:03:05..to his fill.

1:03:07 > 1:03:08He had written a book called

1:03:08 > 1:03:11Let's Hear It For The Long-legged Women.

1:03:11 > 1:03:14A lot of people thought, because he was with Maya,

1:03:14 > 1:03:17that the book was about Maya.

1:03:17 > 1:03:19But it just so happened that his significant other

1:03:19 > 1:03:25before Maya had been another six foot woman, Germaine Greer,

1:03:25 > 1:03:29who was England's leading feminist.

1:03:29 > 1:03:33My mother was just beginning to become prominent,

1:03:33 > 1:03:36and they bought a number of houses

1:03:36 > 1:03:40where they just tore them apart and reconstructed them.

1:03:40 > 1:03:43I mean, the time I went up to see them,

1:03:43 > 1:03:47he was under the house, repairing things, you know.

1:03:47 > 1:03:50And Maya was being Miss Homemaker.

1:03:50 > 1:03:55You know, she was in the kitchen, which is her sanctum, really.

1:03:55 > 1:03:56She loves the kitchen.

1:03:56 > 1:04:02Paul would roast goats and pigs, and they had parties.

1:04:03 > 1:04:07I thought that her relationship with Paul was the most compatible

1:04:07 > 1:04:09that I witnessed over the years.

1:04:09 > 1:04:12He seemed very caring.

1:04:12 > 1:04:18She seemed at peace with herself when they were together.

1:04:19 > 1:04:24I could see Maya looking at Paul, with a look that was just...

1:04:24 > 1:04:27You can't describe it any other way but,

1:04:27 > 1:04:30"Wow, this woman is really taken with this guy, you know."

1:04:30 > 1:04:32They were solid.

1:04:32 > 1:04:35I mean, they had their differences,

1:04:35 > 1:04:38but they communicated, you know, in a good way.

1:04:38 > 1:04:40So, when I heard that it was over...

1:04:42 > 1:04:43..I was shocked.

1:04:46 > 1:04:50Maya was on the road and, increasingly,

1:04:50 > 1:04:51Paul didn't go with her.

1:04:53 > 1:04:57Paul drank increasingly and Maya, you know,

1:04:57 > 1:05:00she could turn up one too.

1:05:00 > 1:05:02Paul said to me, personally,

1:05:02 > 1:05:06that he didn't feel there was room for anybody else,

1:05:06 > 1:05:10besides the written word, in Maya's life.

1:05:13 > 1:05:17My mother has not had the good fortune to know...

1:05:18 > 1:05:19..love...

1:05:21 > 1:05:23..that lasts a long time.

1:05:29 > 1:05:32One thing they cannot prohibit,

1:05:32 > 1:05:36the strong men coming on.

1:05:38 > 1:05:40The strong men

1:05:40 > 1:05:42getting stronger.

1:05:43 > 1:05:45Strong men,

1:05:45 > 1:05:49stronger, stronger, stronger.

1:05:49 > 1:05:52# I've been downhearted, baby...

1:05:53 > 1:05:56# Ever since the day we met. #

1:05:58 > 1:05:59What a pity.

1:05:59 > 1:06:02'I was doing a score on Love of Ivy.'

1:06:02 > 1:06:06# You know our love is nothing but the blues, woman. #

1:06:06 > 1:06:11'We had BB King for two songs and I needed a lyricist.'

1:06:11 > 1:06:14# Baby, how blue can you get? #

1:06:14 > 1:06:17And so, I saw her in New York and asked her,

1:06:17 > 1:06:20would she be interested in doing the lyrics for BB King

1:06:20 > 1:06:22for this movie, with Sidney Poitier

1:06:22 > 1:06:23and Abbey Lincoln?

1:06:23 > 1:06:27And she said, "Sure," and she wrote the lyrics for two songs.

1:06:27 > 1:06:28One was a big hit.

1:06:28 > 1:06:30I'm going to ask you one last question

1:06:30 > 1:06:32and then we'll be finished.

1:06:32 > 1:06:35The question is - what is the blues?

1:06:35 > 1:06:38Now, wait, Mr King.

1:06:38 > 1:06:40One of the things I'm interested in here

1:06:40 > 1:06:44is the relationship of the Blues to African music.

1:06:44 > 1:06:47I didn't discover till Maya confessed it to me,

1:06:47 > 1:06:50that her and BB...

1:06:50 > 1:06:52that the relationship went past lyric writing.

1:06:52 > 1:06:56We've heard that ladies will cry when something happen to them.

1:06:56 > 1:07:00A man won't cry on the outside, but he usually cry inwardly.

1:07:00 > 1:07:02It might be one of those funny type of things that you...

1:07:02 > 1:07:04I feel that you may laugh at me about it,

1:07:04 > 1:07:07so I'll get out to myself and I sing about it

1:07:07 > 1:07:10and eventually it becomes a song.

1:07:10 > 1:07:11You see that's poetry.

1:07:11 > 1:07:14That shows that you're not only a poet in your music.

1:07:14 > 1:07:16No, it's true.

1:07:16 > 1:07:18And I said, "If I knew that, I would have told you to stay away,

1:07:18 > 1:07:21"because Blues singers give the Blues, they don't get the Blues,

1:07:21 > 1:07:23"they give the Blues."

1:07:23 > 1:07:27# How blue can you get, woman? #

1:07:27 > 1:07:31And he gave her some blues too, cos he gave her a rough time.

1:07:31 > 1:07:36# The answer's right here, in my heart. #

1:07:38 > 1:07:41When I was young, my father would...

1:07:42 > 1:07:46He would shout, "Come here, bring the kids, bring the kids!"

1:07:46 > 1:07:47and we'd go running in.

1:07:47 > 1:07:50And he'd go, "Look at this, coloured girl on TV!"

1:07:50 > 1:07:54And he'd just be sitting there, looking at it.

1:07:54 > 1:07:58At that point, the main images that we were getting on the screen

1:07:58 > 1:08:01were people that I didn't recognise.

1:08:01 > 1:08:04But Roots was as if my family

1:08:04 > 1:08:06was on the television.

1:08:07 > 1:08:11And I don't mean my ancestral family but my real family.

1:08:11 > 1:08:15Now that you are a man, what will you do?

1:08:15 > 1:08:18The Roots mini-series comes out in '77.

1:08:19 > 1:08:24Black directors, black actresses,

1:08:24 > 1:08:28and here's Maya, the grandmother of Kunta Kinte.

1:08:28 > 1:08:34You can grow as tall as a tree and I will still be your grandmother!

1:08:34 > 1:08:38The '70s and the '80s was a great time for Maya.

1:08:38 > 1:08:39Maya was cooking.

1:08:41 > 1:08:45I mean, Caged Bird was made into a movie.

1:08:45 > 1:08:47Maya became the first black woman member

1:08:47 > 1:08:49of the Directors Guild Of America.

1:08:49 > 1:08:51"Woo, tell me about it!"

1:08:51 > 1:08:54She had this series of autobiographies come out.

1:08:54 > 1:08:56Just smokin', you know.

1:08:56 > 1:09:00And poetry - Pray My Wings, Heart Of A Woman,

1:09:00 > 1:09:03Singin & Swingin & Getting Merry Like Christmas.

1:09:03 > 1:09:06A singer, dancer, actress, screenwriter,

1:09:06 > 1:09:08editor, lecturer, author...

1:09:16 > 1:09:20Joy was a word that Maya wrote in her autograph,

1:09:20 > 1:09:22tens of thousands of times.

1:09:22 > 1:09:26I'd be with her and there'd be lines in the gymnasium,

1:09:26 > 1:09:29wrapping around inside the gymnasium.

1:09:29 > 1:09:35I always knew that what Maya Angelou held as a poet and a writer

1:09:35 > 1:09:39was something that the world needed to feel and experience.

1:09:44 > 1:09:47I was asked, would I consider writing a poem

1:09:47 > 1:09:50for President Clinton's inauguration?

1:09:50 > 1:09:52And I said, "Yes".

1:09:52 > 1:09:54And then I started to pray and ask everybody,

1:09:54 > 1:09:56"Little children, what do you think?"

1:09:56 > 1:10:01I wanted a poem, nobody had done a poem since Robert Frost.

1:10:01 > 1:10:06Once I made that decision, I didn't really think about anybody else.

1:10:06 > 1:10:10Maya Angelou had spent a lot of her childhood in Stamps, Arkansas,

1:10:10 > 1:10:14which is about 25 miles from Hope, where I was born.

1:10:14 > 1:10:17My grandfather had a little grocery store

1:10:17 > 1:10:21in a predominantly African-American neighbourhood.

1:10:21 > 1:10:24When I read I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings,

1:10:24 > 1:10:28I knew exactly who she was talking about and what she was talking about

1:10:28 > 1:10:31in that book.

1:10:31 > 1:10:33That's a contradiction in terms,

1:10:33 > 1:10:34- "public poem."- Yes.

1:10:34 > 1:10:38Poem is private and interior and all that.

1:10:38 > 1:10:42And people, as soon as the statement was made to the press,

1:10:42 > 1:10:45people would see me in the supermarket or on planes and say,

1:10:45 > 1:10:47"How's the poem going?"

1:10:47 > 1:10:50- Gosh.- "Finish that poem yet?!" - Yeah, exactly.

1:10:50 > 1:10:54I knew she got me, she understood the time we were living in,

1:10:54 > 1:10:57she understood the world we were living in.

1:10:57 > 1:11:02And she knew what could be our undoing as well as our unchaining.

1:11:02 > 1:11:05Now, we had no idea what she was going to say.

1:11:05 > 1:11:07And Bill didn't come with any set of directions, like,

1:11:07 > 1:11:09"Well, I'd like you to talk about this and I'd like you

1:11:09 > 1:11:12"to talk about that." He just said, "I want you to write a poem

1:11:12 > 1:11:14"and deliver it at my inauguration".

1:11:14 > 1:11:17But I knew she'd make an impression.

1:11:17 > 1:11:21She was big, and she had the voice of God.

1:11:21 > 1:11:25A Rock, a River, a Tree

1:11:25 > 1:11:30Hosts to species long since departed,

1:11:30 > 1:11:33Marked the mastodon...

1:11:33 > 1:11:36And the minute she started talking

1:11:36 > 1:11:41you could just feel the change rolling across the crowd

1:11:41 > 1:11:44and everybody started listening.

1:11:44 > 1:11:47But today, the Rock cries out to us,

1:11:47 > 1:11:52Come, you may stand upon my back...

1:11:52 > 1:11:56The rock comes from a 19th century gospel song.

1:11:56 > 1:11:59# Oh, I went to the rock to hide my face

1:11:59 > 1:12:01# Rock cried out...#

1:12:01 > 1:12:04No hiding place down here.

1:12:04 > 1:12:06Across the wall of the world

1:12:06 > 1:12:08A River sings a beautiful song...

1:12:08 > 1:12:11# I'm gonna lay down my burden

1:12:11 > 1:12:13# Down by the riverside

1:12:13 > 1:12:17# To study a war no more. #

1:12:17 > 1:12:20Your armed struggles for profit

1:12:20 > 1:12:22Have left collars of waste upon

1:12:22 > 1:12:24My shore.

1:12:24 > 1:12:27Yet, today, I call you to my riverside,

1:12:27 > 1:12:30If you will study war no more.

1:12:30 > 1:12:31And once you had that?

1:12:32 > 1:12:35Then, I could talk about all of us.

1:12:35 > 1:12:37There is a true yearning to respond to

1:12:37 > 1:12:40The singing River and the wise Rock.

1:12:40 > 1:12:44So say the Asian, the Hispanic, the Jew,

1:12:44 > 1:12:48The African, the Native American, the Sioux,

1:12:48 > 1:12:51The Catholic, the Muslim, the French, the Greek,

1:12:51 > 1:12:55The Irish, the Rabbi, the Priest, the Sheik,

1:12:55 > 1:12:57The Gay, the Straight, the Preacher,

1:12:57 > 1:13:00The Privileged, the Homeless, the Teacher.

1:13:00 > 1:13:01They all hear

1:13:01 > 1:13:03The speaking of the Tree.

1:13:03 > 1:13:05Each of you, descendant of some passed

1:13:05 > 1:13:09On traveller, has been paid for.

1:13:09 > 1:13:13Bought, sold, stolen, arriving on a nightmare,

1:13:13 > 1:13:15Praying for a dream.

1:13:15 > 1:13:16Give birth again

1:13:16 > 1:13:18To the dream.

1:13:18 > 1:13:19'It was wonderful.'

1:13:19 > 1:13:20Sculpt it into

1:13:20 > 1:13:22The image of your most public self.

1:13:22 > 1:13:25I thought it was monumental.

1:13:28 > 1:13:29Because it was inclusive.

1:13:31 > 1:13:33It was understandable.

1:13:33 > 1:13:35It was the whole package.

1:13:35 > 1:13:39I mean, it was a phenomenal woman at a moment in history where she

1:13:39 > 1:13:43belonged with a president with whom she could relate.

1:13:43 > 1:13:46It just pulled it all together.

1:13:46 > 1:13:49Here, on the pulse of this new day

1:13:49 > 1:13:52You may have the grace to look up and out

1:13:52 > 1:13:55And into your sister's eyes, and into

1:13:55 > 1:13:59Your brother's face, your country

1:13:59 > 1:14:01And say simply

1:14:01 > 1:14:02Very simply

1:14:02 > 1:14:04With hope

1:14:04 > 1:14:06Good morning.

1:14:12 > 1:14:16She just did it. I mean, it was just breathtaking.

1:14:18 > 1:14:23That poem is kind of like an eternal gift to America.

1:14:23 > 1:14:25And it'll read well 100 years from now.

1:14:30 > 1:14:34Right after she delivered the inaugural address poem,

1:14:34 > 1:14:38so many requests started coming in.

1:14:38 > 1:14:41If she lives another lifetime,

1:14:41 > 1:14:45she wouldn't be able to fulfil the requests

1:14:45 > 1:14:48to speak at universities and colleges.

1:14:48 > 1:14:50That is some...

1:14:50 > 1:14:52Woo!

1:14:52 > 1:14:55# My name's Maya, that's a fine name

1:14:55 > 1:14:58# It's not your name but it's fine just the same. #

1:14:58 > 1:14:59Dr Maya Angelou.

1:14:59 > 1:15:00Maya Angelou.

1:15:00 > 1:15:02Ladies and gentlemen, Maya Angelou.

1:15:02 > 1:15:04Dr Maya Angelou.

1:15:04 > 1:15:06The poet Maya Angelou is here.

1:15:10 > 1:15:12- Kim, you had a question. - Yeah, I wanted to ask Maya

1:15:12 > 1:15:15her views on interracial relationships?

1:15:15 > 1:15:17Oh, thank you, and first, I'm Miss Angelou.

1:15:17 > 1:15:19- Miss Angelou.- Yes, ma'am.

1:15:19 > 1:15:21I'm not Maya. I'm 62 years old.

1:15:21 > 1:15:24I have lived so long and tried so hard

1:15:24 > 1:15:28that a young woman like you, or any other, has no license

1:15:28 > 1:15:31to come up to me and call me by my first name.

1:15:31 > 1:15:34That's first. That's first.

1:15:34 > 1:15:38Also, because at the same time, I am your mother, I'm your auntie,

1:15:38 > 1:15:42I'm your teacher, I'm your professor, you see?

1:15:42 > 1:15:45I wrote the book Gather Together In My Name

1:15:45 > 1:15:47to tell young people

1:15:47 > 1:15:49that I would admit where I'd been.

1:15:51 > 1:15:55I had written about a very rough time at 18.

1:15:55 > 1:15:58I went on to a national show

1:15:58 > 1:16:02and the woman who interviewed me, who I knew slightly,

1:16:02 > 1:16:07said, "Maya Angelou, how does it feel to know you're

1:16:07 > 1:16:11"the first black woman to have a national bestseller non-fiction,

1:16:11 > 1:16:15"second book nominated for the Pulitzer,

1:16:15 > 1:16:19"and to know that, at 18, you were a prostitute?"

1:16:19 > 1:16:24The fellow I liked told me he was desperate

1:16:24 > 1:16:27and I was so green.

1:16:27 > 1:16:29I'll tell you why I wrote that, though.

1:16:29 > 1:16:34Because so many adults told, and tell, young people,

1:16:34 > 1:16:35"I've never done anything wrong,

1:16:35 > 1:16:41"my closet is free of spectres and ghosts and skeletons."

1:16:41 > 1:16:42So I thought...

1:16:43 > 1:16:46..they could all gather together in my name.

1:16:46 > 1:16:49I would tell the children, "Listen, I've done this,

1:16:49 > 1:16:53"this has happened. I have forgiven myself, I have gotten up".

1:16:53 > 1:16:59I was afraid that when I told it that there would be sneering at me.

1:16:59 > 1:17:01Just the opposite.

1:17:02 > 1:17:03Just the opposite happened.

1:17:07 > 1:17:10My Aunt Pauline passed this quilt down to me.

1:17:10 > 1:17:13It was made by my great-great-grandmother.

1:17:13 > 1:17:16The first time I ever sat down with her was during the making of

1:17:16 > 1:17:18How To Make An American Quilt.

1:17:18 > 1:17:22And I was giving her her proper reverential due

1:17:22 > 1:17:26and calling her Dr Angelou, or...

1:17:26 > 1:17:30And she would say, "Alfre, stop it, you call me Maya".

1:17:30 > 1:17:33And I looked at her and I said, "I'm not calling you Maya!"

1:17:33 > 1:17:37I said, "OK, let's compromise, we'll go with Miss Maya".

1:17:37 > 1:17:41Let's go right away while we've got the sun and no airplane.

1:17:41 > 1:17:47In the late '90s, Dr Angelou was going to make her directing debut.

1:17:47 > 1:17:48Cut!

1:17:48 > 1:17:52I knew she was a creative genius, so I didn't have any qualms of being

1:17:52 > 1:17:55directed by a first-time director,

1:17:55 > 1:17:59but poets tend to be more introspective.

1:18:00 > 1:18:03Poets create alone.

1:18:04 > 1:18:08And a film set is the absolute opposite.

1:18:08 > 1:18:12It's loud, it's boisterous, until action.

1:18:12 > 1:18:13# Little darling

1:18:13 > 1:18:15# Gotta go now. #

1:18:15 > 1:18:19Maya Angelou's film Down In The Delta mirrored the

1:18:19 > 1:18:23migration of the sharecroppers,

1:18:23 > 1:18:28coming up to the north for opportunity, for safety.

1:18:28 > 1:18:34And they start to live away from the land, on concrete,

1:18:34 > 1:18:39and that starts to change a person,

1:18:39 > 1:18:41especially people who have worked the land.

1:18:41 > 1:18:43And it starts to make the family dysfunctional

1:18:43 > 1:18:45after a couple of generations.

1:18:46 > 1:18:48- BUZZER RINGS - Loretta!

1:18:50 > 1:18:52- Open up!- What?

1:18:52 > 1:18:54'And the mother...

1:18:54 > 1:18:58'realises, you know what, the remedy to that...'

1:18:58 > 1:19:00Come on home.

1:19:00 > 1:19:02'..is getting back to the land,

1:19:02 > 1:19:04is going down where people say,

1:19:04 > 1:19:07"Good morning, how are you, sir?" "I am fine."

1:19:07 > 1:19:08Where there is community.

1:19:14 > 1:19:16Dr Angelou believed in the beauty

1:19:16 > 1:19:20and the healing power of the South...

1:19:22 > 1:19:25..and of family and connection.

1:19:25 > 1:19:31150 years of family history right here.

1:19:31 > 1:19:35The whole crew would sit and she would talk about

1:19:35 > 1:19:40the historical significance of a particular scene and what would be

1:19:40 > 1:19:44happening in that space 100 years ago.

1:19:46 > 1:19:51It was like we were on an archaeological dig,

1:19:51 > 1:19:53on sacred ground.

1:19:54 > 1:19:58When I was living in Ghana, the people there looked at me

1:19:58 > 1:20:04and thinking, "I look so much like them, that maybe I was a daughter

1:20:04 > 1:20:07"of one of the people who had been taken."

1:20:07 > 1:20:10So, we all wept.

1:20:11 > 1:20:18It was very difficult to be in the place where the slaves were housed

1:20:18 > 1:20:19until the ship would come.

1:20:22 > 1:20:25Those who could run away ran away.

1:20:25 > 1:20:29Women took their babies by their feet and slung them against trees,

1:20:29 > 1:20:33so that they wouldn't be sold into slavery.

1:20:34 > 1:20:37I could hear the wails

1:20:37 > 1:20:42of people in caverns, in chains,

1:20:42 > 1:20:46knowing that they would never see their beloveds again.

1:20:46 > 1:20:52That they would be put into ships and sailed across seas...

1:20:53 > 1:20:57..creating for me and mine the worst times in our lives.

1:21:00 > 1:21:03We've undergone experiences too bizarre and yet,

1:21:03 > 1:21:05here we are, still here.

1:21:05 > 1:21:09Today, upwards of 50 million.

1:21:09 > 1:21:11And I know there are people who swear there are more

1:21:11 > 1:21:14than 50 million black people in the Baptist Church...

1:21:14 > 1:21:15LAUGHTER

1:21:15 > 1:21:17..and they're not even counting backsliders

1:21:17 > 1:21:19and the three black atheists in the world.

1:21:19 > 1:21:22Still here, still here!

1:21:22 > 1:21:23Amazing!

1:21:23 > 1:21:26I think at some point we have to stop and wonder,

1:21:26 > 1:21:30"How did we come to a place where young men

1:21:30 > 1:21:32"call the other gender 'ho'?"

1:21:32 > 1:21:34What happened?

1:21:34 > 1:21:38And to use the N-word, as if that's OK to use.

1:21:38 > 1:21:41It's not, and you know it's not.

1:21:41 > 1:21:45When I was working on my new album, The Dream of the Believer,

1:21:45 > 1:21:48and Dr Maya Angelou was a friend of mine,

1:21:48 > 1:21:51she wrote a piece for it and we placed it in the song.

1:21:51 > 1:21:54Once you find your shoulders dropping,

1:21:54 > 1:21:57and your speech gets slow and hazy,

1:21:57 > 1:21:59you'd better change your way of being.

1:21:59 > 1:22:03Well, I was using, like, the N-word in it,

1:22:03 > 1:22:09so a writer brought that up to her and she expressed that, you know,

1:22:09 > 1:22:11she wasn't happy with that.

1:22:11 > 1:22:14Maya Angelou came out and said she was disappointed in you.

1:22:14 > 1:22:16And the use of the N-word.

1:22:16 > 1:22:19She was like... I wouldn't use the word disappointed.

1:22:19 > 1:22:21She was like... Basically, she was just surprised.

1:22:21 > 1:22:25So I got on the phone with her, I gave her my perspective on it,

1:22:25 > 1:22:27"Man, you know this is part of our culture,

1:22:27 > 1:22:29"and I know the word came from a bad thing,

1:22:29 > 1:22:31"but we turned it into something positive."

1:22:31 > 1:22:33She wasn't trying to hear all that.

1:22:33 > 1:22:34No, no, no, no, no.

1:22:34 > 1:22:36It's vulgar.

1:22:36 > 1:22:40It's meant... It's created to demean a human being.

1:22:40 > 1:22:43I know black people say, "I can use it because I'm black".

1:22:43 > 1:22:49No, no. If a thing is poison, and it's got a skull and bones on it,

1:22:49 > 1:22:54you can take that content and pour it into Bavarian crystal,

1:22:54 > 1:22:55it's still poison.

1:22:55 > 1:22:58I have been in the house where somebody on the other side

1:22:58 > 1:23:03of the room was in the midst of telling a joke,

1:23:03 > 1:23:07and I think this happened to be a joke about a gay person.

1:23:07 > 1:23:10And she hears the tone of that joke...

1:23:11 > 1:23:13..and she stops the party

1:23:13 > 1:23:17and asks them to leave her home.

1:23:17 > 1:23:21"Not in my house will those kinds of words be spoken."

1:23:21 > 1:23:28So, when I see the children using the words, I stop them

1:23:28 > 1:23:32and say, "Excuse me, just a minute, please."

1:23:32 > 1:23:36John Singleton did a movie, called Poetic Justice,

1:23:36 > 1:23:39and he asked if he could use some of my poetry

1:23:39 > 1:23:42for Janet Jackson to speak.

1:23:42 > 1:23:44Storm clouds are gathering

1:23:44 > 1:23:46The wind is gonna blow

1:23:46 > 1:23:49The race of man is suffering...

1:23:49 > 1:23:51And I had said, "Yes, of course."

1:23:51 > 1:23:56Then he asked, would I come out to California and do a cameo?

1:23:56 > 1:23:59Their parents are not taking care of the children.

1:23:59 > 1:24:04And there was one young man on the set, who was cursing.

1:24:04 > 1:24:05He was using...

1:24:05 > 1:24:10Woo-ha! I mean you could see the blue come out of his mouth.

1:24:10 > 1:24:13Ooh! I mean combinations of words, I had...

1:24:13 > 1:24:14Wow!

1:24:14 > 1:24:20So, the next day when I came out, he was still cursing,

1:24:20 > 1:24:23and then he got into a big row with another young man,

1:24:23 > 1:24:26they were going to fisticuffs.

1:24:26 > 1:24:30This was the period in which the LA Riots had just broken out.

1:24:30 > 1:24:33And so, there was a lot of tension on the set.

1:24:33 > 1:24:36And I said, "Excuse me, may I speak?"

1:24:36 > 1:24:39The young man, who was cursing, said, "I wouldn't give a..."

1:24:39 > 1:24:42I said, "I understand that, I understand that,

1:24:42 > 1:24:43"but may I speak?"

1:24:43 > 1:24:46"If these moth..." I said, "Mm-hmm, I've heard that before too.

1:24:46 > 1:24:48"But, may I speak to you?

1:24:48 > 1:24:52"You see if they think that, they've really got it wrong."

1:24:52 > 1:24:55And so, I said, "I see that. But when was the last time

1:24:55 > 1:25:00"anyone told you how important you are?

1:25:00 > 1:25:02"You're the best we have.

1:25:02 > 1:25:05"We need you desperately.

1:25:05 > 1:25:08"Do you know that our people stood on auction blocks for you?

1:25:08 > 1:25:13"Did you know we got up before sunrise and slept after sunset?

1:25:13 > 1:25:17"So that you could stay alive, you could be here this day?"

1:25:17 > 1:25:21And I put my arm around his waist and I just walked him down

1:25:21 > 1:25:24a little sort of decline

1:25:24 > 1:25:28and I talked to him about our people.

1:25:28 > 1:25:31And she put her arms around him and she just walked him away

1:25:31 > 1:25:32and they had their own private moment.

1:25:32 > 1:25:34You know, I don't know everything that was said,

1:25:34 > 1:25:35but it was phenomenal.

1:25:35 > 1:25:39Suddenly, he started to cry.

1:25:39 > 1:25:45And I turned his back to the crowd and just talked to him.

1:25:45 > 1:25:47I didn't have a Kleenex or a handkerchief,

1:25:47 > 1:25:52I just took my hand and wiped his face.

1:25:52 > 1:25:57And when he had control of himself again, I continued to my trailer.

1:25:57 > 1:26:02Within two minutes, Ms Janet Jackson came to my trailer.

1:26:02 > 1:26:05She said, "Dr Angelou, I don't believe you actually spoke

1:26:05 > 1:26:06"to Tupac Shakur!"

1:26:06 > 1:26:08LAUGHTER

1:26:08 > 1:26:12So, I said, "Darling, I don't know six-pack.

1:26:12 > 1:26:14"I did nothing."

1:26:14 > 1:26:17I had no idea who he was.

1:26:17 > 1:26:20She said, "Well, he's a very famous rap star."

1:26:20 > 1:26:23So, I said, "Oh, well, I'm glad to know that,

1:26:23 > 1:26:26"and he's fine and all is well."

1:26:26 > 1:26:28For him, it was like...

1:26:28 > 1:26:30it was golden, you know, it was a golden moment.

1:26:30 > 1:26:32He told his mother, Afeni Shakur, about it.

1:26:32 > 1:26:34Afeni wrote Maya a letter

1:26:34 > 1:26:37and, "Thank you for looking out for Pac."

1:26:38 > 1:26:43This is called I'm Ageing, which I wrote as a song.

1:26:43 > 1:26:45When you see me walking, stumbling

1:26:45 > 1:26:47Don't study and get it wrong.

1:26:47 > 1:26:49Tired don't mean lazy

1:26:49 > 1:26:51Every goodbye ain't gone.

1:26:51 > 1:26:53I'm the same person I was back then,

1:26:53 > 1:26:56A little less heart, a little less chin,

1:26:56 > 1:26:58Some less lungs and some less wind.

1:26:58 > 1:27:01But ain't I lucky I can still breathe in.

1:27:01 > 1:27:03I'm a patient of COPD,

1:27:03 > 1:27:08which means chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

1:27:08 > 1:27:13My lungs are so mangled that I don't get enough oxygen.

1:27:13 > 1:27:17And so I have to have supplementary oxygen.

1:27:17 > 1:27:21As she got older, it was more difficult.

1:27:22 > 1:27:26And that's why she really made an effort.

1:27:27 > 1:27:33And she was visibly challenged, but dismissive of it.

1:27:33 > 1:27:37Everyone else was trying to make sure things were right for her,

1:27:37 > 1:27:39she just wanted to live her life.

1:27:41 > 1:27:46She knew that if she didn't continue to go, she would stop.

1:27:46 > 1:27:48That's what fed her.

1:27:48 > 1:27:52She had this incredible love for people.

1:27:54 > 1:28:00And she did everything that she could to keep herself alive.

1:28:00 > 1:28:04And to keep people being fed by that energy.

1:28:04 > 1:28:08It's a blessing! Praise God, praise God.

1:28:08 > 1:28:10Don't take this one, that's...

1:28:10 > 1:28:16'I think one of the things that brings people together...

1:28:17 > 1:28:20'..at any time during their lives...'

1:28:32 > 1:28:36'..is a recognition of a similarity...

1:28:38 > 1:28:41'..and that is the bond

1:28:41 > 1:28:42'that brings you together.'

1:28:49 > 1:28:51We talked all the time.

1:28:51 > 1:28:54And so, she knew I was doing the play

1:28:54 > 1:28:58and she had talked to several people who had seen it.

1:28:58 > 1:29:01And I knew she wasn't well

1:29:01 > 1:29:07and I didn't want her to feel any pressure about coming to see it

1:29:07 > 1:29:10in New York City.

1:29:10 > 1:29:14One evening, the show's over,

1:29:14 > 1:29:17one of the stage managers says,

1:29:17 > 1:29:21"There's a guest of yours here."

1:29:21 > 1:29:22I go upstairs...

1:29:24 > 1:29:27..and she's at the head of the steps in her wheelchair.

1:29:31 > 1:29:36# When God shut Noah in the grand old ark... #

1:29:38 > 1:29:40I hope she's happy.

1:29:40 > 1:29:43# He put a rainbow in the cloud

1:29:47 > 1:29:53# When the thunder rolled and the sky got dark

1:29:55 > 1:29:59# God put a rainbow in the cloud

1:30:01 > 1:30:05# In the clouds, in the cloud. #

1:30:07 > 1:30:09All of us have different fingerprints,

1:30:09 > 1:30:13but some of our fingerprints are so indelible on the lives

1:30:13 > 1:30:16of other people, when they touch us.

1:30:18 > 1:30:20Miss Maya's gone...

1:30:21 > 1:30:25..and nobody is going to talk like she talked,

1:30:25 > 1:30:26or walked like she walked.

1:30:28 > 1:30:32I mean, she left us plenty of things, we can't be greedy, but...

1:30:32 > 1:30:36man, the curtain going down on that act...

1:30:39 > 1:30:41Thank God I got to live in that time.

1:30:43 > 1:30:47# Steal away

1:30:47 > 1:30:52# Steal away home

1:30:52 > 1:30:58# I ain't got long

1:30:58 > 1:31:03# To stay here. #

1:31:05 > 1:31:06BELL RINGS

1:31:14 > 1:31:17You may write me down in history

1:31:17 > 1:31:19With your bitter, twisted lies,

1:31:19 > 1:31:23You may trod me in the very dirt

1:31:23 > 1:31:26But still, like dust, I'll rise.

1:31:26 > 1:31:28Does my sassiness upset you?

1:31:28 > 1:31:31Why are you beset with gloom?

1:31:31 > 1:31:34Just cos I walk like I've got oil wells

1:31:34 > 1:31:36Pumping in my living room.

1:31:37 > 1:31:40Just like moons and like suns,

1:31:40 > 1:31:43With the certainty of tides.

1:31:44 > 1:31:48Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,

1:31:48 > 1:31:54I am the hope and the dream of the slave

1:31:54 > 1:31:57And so I rise

1:31:57 > 1:31:59I rise

1:31:59 > 1:32:01I rise.

1:32:01 > 1:32:04APPLAUSE