CONVERSATIONS on COURAGE and FAITH: MAYA ANGELOU

Transcription

CONVERSATIONS on COURAGE and FAITH: MAYA ANGELOU
Good evening everybody, and welcome. My name is Ian Cron and I am the director of the Conversations on
Courage and Faith program here at Christ Church. For those of you who have participated or attended one of
our events before, you know that the inspiration behind this series was a letter written by my great hero Thomas
Merton in 1968. It was his advent letter, in which he said or began the letter with the two sentences: The times
are difficult. They call for courage and faith.
I remember reading those words and feeling at the deepest place in my heart, as though they were as true today
as they were in 1968. These are times that call for both courage and for faith. So Dr. Jim Lemler, Rector of
Christ Church, and I began to dream about what a series would look like, if we could bring to the broader
community great innovative thinkers, theologians, artists, people of multiple disciplines to come and animate in
us these virtues of courage and faith; that we might live in a fractured and discontinuous world with more of an
effusion of God’s presence, however that might express itself within us. And so over the last two years we’ve
hosted Marcus Borg, Peter Rollins, an orchestral symphony with Rob Mathes and Michael O’Siadhail, and the
social justice advocate Tony Campolo, I mean the list can go on. Of course Desmond Tutu who was with us last
year. So many wonderful people who have come and if I can use a word, I’m not sure exists but if it doesn’t it
should, and that is who have adrenalized our faith in some new way. Tonight we have a tremendous blessing on
our hands and I hope your hands our empty, as well as your hearts, to receive everything that you are about to
receive, both musically and of course mostly from our esteemed guest Dr. Maya Angelou.
Last summer Rob Mathes, who I’ve known for over 45 years, and I were at the beach together and I was saying
“well Rob, you know next year I’m thinking about who to have..” and I paraded out a list of impressive names
and he just yawned right through the whole list. Then I said “well here’s the thing, what would happen if I
could get or if we could get Dr. Maya Angelou.” And he went like this and he said, “I’ll tell you what, if you
get Dr. Maya Angelou I’ll get you the kickingnist band in New York City and we will put on the best…!” And
he just went off, I figured well that was a sign from the good Lord, that perhaps I should go in that direction less
I suffer the consequence. So we actually wrote to Dr. Angelou and said could you tell us your six favorite
spirituals. Within days we received an email back with those titles – immediately from her. And so I hope this
evening that between the music and particularly just the luminous presence, I have to tell you having spent a
few moments with her, the luminous presence and the words of an American treasure. A global treasure, really.
I hope that you leave tonight feeling more filled with courage to live faithfully in the world, whatever that might
mean for you.
Page 1 -- Transcribed November 10, 2011
I want to turn the first segment of the evening over to that dear friend of mine Rob Mathes. So many of you
know him that if I were to start tooting his horn right now, for some of you it would be a repeat – but I wouldn’t
be able to stop. You know him as the director of the Kennedy Center Honors, music for the Obama
inauguration, most recently the producer of Sting’s remarkable record Symphonicities. The list could go on and
on, his credits are ridiculous; I’m thoroughly jealous. I don’t like him as a person. [Laughter] But you know
what, he’s one of our hometown boys and that’s what I like about him the most in some ways, that we get to say
he’s one of our guys. And so it’s with great pleasure, I introduce to you my best pal Rob Mathes. [Applause]
I bet it was a great shock to these geniuses in front of you that tonight they were called the Rob Mathes Gospel
Singers. [Laughter] I wonder what Vaneese…what did you think when you first saw that “oh I’m a Rob Mathes
Gospel Singer.” Let me introduce these wonderful artists, this is Ms. Angela Clemmons, of course the great
Vaneese Thomas, James “D Train” Williams, and Mike Harvey. [Applause] There is an incredible Studs Terkel
collection of interviews, it’s seven discs, called Voices of Our Time, and it contains one of the most moving
interviews with Dr. Angelou. She speaks about spirituals, and there is an incredible passage in I know Why The
Caged Bird Sings where she is a young girl and is completely shocked and saddened because her grandmother
is kind of belittled by these young white girls, actually living on her grandmother’s land, and she has to call
them “Hello Ms. Gene, Hello Ms. Joan”, but they call her disrespectfully “Hello Annie”. And young Maya is
weeping at this. When she speaks to Studs about it, Studs reads the moment in that book, and it’s incredible
because what happens is as she’s crying, she speaks of her grandmother touching her and picking her up almost
like the women of the church would lay hands on the afflicted. And her grandmother going and telling her to
wash her hands and put water on her face, and she hears her grandmother going into the next room humming:
“Glory Glory, Hallelujah, when I lay my burdens down”. It’s an extraordinary interview and I thought when
listening to that, that Dr. Maya Angelou’s life is a spiritual in and of itself: it’s an opera of spirituals. So the
opportunity for us as musicians to play spirituals for her, her favorite spirituals, is a great honor. What we’re
going to do tonight is we’re going to play three of her favorite spirituals and then I will introduce her and she’s
going to come out and speak to you. And then we’ll play two more spirituals, and then she’ll come out and
speak once more. The band we have here is the great Ira Coleman on base, Joe Bonadio on drums and Chris
Coogan on keyboards.
We’re going to begin with “There’s No Hiding Place Down Here”. [Music]
[Applause] This is the great old spiritual, often associated with Paul Robeson, called “Go Down Moses”. It’s
going to be sung by Angela Clemmons. [Music]
Angela Clemmons, Angela Clemmons!! [Applause] You know the singers in the band weren’t as privileged as I
– I got to hear Dr. Angelou sing this next number before the show. I can tell you all about it if you guys throw
me a couple of bucks [laughter], after the show. Anyway, no, this is one of, literally, I feel, this is one of the
greatest things ever written by a human hand, actually it was written with a human voice and a human heart.
This is the great great great spiritual “Sometimes I Feel Like A Motherless Child”. It will be sung by Vaneese
Thomas. Again after we do this, I will introduce Dr. Angelou and she will speak and we will do two more
songs, and she will speak again. [Music]
[Applause] Vaneese Thomas!! [Applause]
When America needs the words of a sage, spoken with a voice of an angel, Dr. Maya Angelou is there at the
ready. She is one of the most renowned and influential voices of our time. Once a lecturer in Cairo, a teacher in
Ghana, she danced with Ivan Ailey on television, recorded a Calypso record, acted on Broadway; she knows
how to speak French, Spanish, Italian, Arabic, and the West African language Fanti. She worked very closely
and alongside Malcolm X, and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in the Civil Rights Movement. Helping Malcolm
build his organization of African American Unity, and serving as Dr. King’s Northern Coordinator for the
Southern Christian Leadership Conference. She’s directed a film and acted in many, from Alex Hailey’s Roots,
to John Singleton’s Poetic Justice. She wrote the screenplay and composed the score for the 1972 film Georgia
Georgia, the first by an African American woman ever to be filmed and it was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize.
Of course for many of us, Dr. Maya Angelou is known as a legendary poet, writer and speaker, and in this
capacity she will be forever remembered. The list of her awards would take the rest of the evening to read: she
has been given honorary degrees numerous times, and doctorates. Now it says in the little blurb they hand out
that it’s 30, but by my count it’s 55 or more: recently won by Columbia University. She has three Grammy
Awards. I don’t even have a Grammy Award – I was nominated for one this year and I lost. [Laughter] She’s
been on the New York Times Bestseller List more times than should be allowed. She was given the Presidential
Medal of the Arts in 2000, the Lincoln Medal in 2008, in 2011 President Barack Obama presented her with the
highest award a civilian can receive: the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Her list of books include Letter To My Daughter, I Shall Not Be Moved, Wouldn’t Take Nothing For My
Journey Now, and of course her legendary first memoir, I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings. A book never out
of print in 40 years. Not only translated in many languages but literally, a permanent part of our culture.
Among her iconic poems are: Still I Rise. Which we have as a children’s book and I have read it to Lilly, and
Phenomenal Woman. Celebrations, is a collection of poems I’ve been rereading and it contains On The Pulse
Of Morning. The poem which she was asked to write and read at President Bill Clinton’s inauguration. That
iconic moment forever imprinted Dr. Angelou into the nation’s consciousness. I will never forget her reading of
her final lines, and I will not try to recreate them here but suffice it to say the last stanza of that is:
Here on the pulse of this new day
You may have the grace to look up and out
And into your sister's eyes,
Into your brother's face, your country
And say simply
Very simply
With hope
Good morning.
When she read that, it was unbelievable. Unbelievable, I’ll never forget it. And of course she ruined it for
every poet that will ever read at an inauguration ever again—because no one is going to follow that. [Laughter]
In the extraordinary Caged Bird Sings, Dr. Angelou speaks of her experience growing up in Stamps Arkansas,
her childhood rape, and the fact that she did not speak one word for five years after the experience. From that
moment to the life that followed it, is quite a journey. If there ever was a legendary figure, who could teach us
how to take the reality around us, for her the racial tension of violence of the 20th Century and make of it a
garden of love, grace and inspiration – it is out speaker. We are privileged to be in her presence this evening.
Ladies and gentlemen, Dr. Maya Angelou. [Applause]
[DR. MAYA ANGELOU ENTERS THE STAGE]
[Maya Angelou sings] “Well it looked like the sun wouldn’t shine anymore; God put a rainbow in the cloud.”
[Maya Angelou reads] Just imagine, imagine, she does not know her beauty. She thinks her brown body has no
glory. If she could dance naked, under palm trees, and see her image in the river, she would know. But there are
no palm trees on the street and dishwater gives back no images. Uh-uh.
Still, [Maya Angelou sings again] “when it looks like the sun wouldn’t shine anymore.”
[Maya Angelou reads again] Ms. Rosie, when I see you black, brown, beige, red, yellow, pink, white, sack of a
woman -- when I see you, Ms. Rosie, sitting, waiting for your man like last week's groceries; when I see you,
Ms. Rosie, in your old man's shoes with the big toes cut out; when I see you, who used to be the prettiest gal in
Georgia, used to be called Georgia Rose; when I see you because of your devotion, your dedication, your
courage and your love, I stand up, I stand straight up, and I know when it look like the sun wasn’t going to
shine anymore, Ms. Rosie, you became a rainbow in the clouds.
Look folks, I’m so happy, so happy, in the church sense of happy. I sat back and listened to the musicians, to
the singers, I wept, copiously, with gratitude that I had ears; gratitude, that I am a human being; gratitude, that
I’m an American; gratitude that I’m an African American; gratitude that I could speak, that I could sing. I stay
in the attitude of gratitude. When I listen to these musicians sing and play music I thought of, years ago, I was
with Porgy and Bess and I had left my son with my mother and my aunt, and I felt so terrible, I felt so guilty
about having left him. I joined Porgy and Bess, we went throughout Europe and some of North Africa, but I
wanted to get home and see about my son. I told Porgy and Bess and they told me I had to pay my
replacement’s fee and fare back to wherever, we were in Rome, and then I could pay my own fare back home to
San Francisco. To find a singer who could dance, and was a dancer really who could sing, and to find that
person was no small matter. So that took about a month, and then finally for me to cage the money – I was
singing in nightclubs after the opera closed, took another month.
Finally I took a ship from Naples to New York. I was so afraid if I took a plane, the plane might fall and my son
was eight. But see my mother, I don’t know what really what she was like, she was an entertainer. So I took a
train from New York to San Francisco and after there, about three days, I was on my mother’s couch when my
son came through and he said, “hi mom”; I thought I could pick him up and jump out of the window, my
mother’s house was on a high hill and I was on the second floor; I could pick him up and end all this guilt. And
I said, go out of the house right now, don’t come back even if I call you, go outside. So he went outside; I
called Luxor cabs in San Francisco, and I had the cab take me to Langley Porter Psychiatric Clinic. I went, and
I’m a young woman, the receptionist asked me if I had an appointment and I said no, she said you can’t come. I
said I have to, I’m about to hurt myself and maybe someone else. Someone must help me, please. So she sent
me down, she called around, she sent me to an office down the hall. There was a young white man there in a
Brooks Brothers suit with a button down collared shirt, and I went in and he asked me “what’s the matter?”, and
I started crying. How could I tell him what it was like to be a black woman, raising a black boy in a racist
country. How will he understand? So I started crying. I calmed myself and he asked again, “please, tell me
what’s the matter?” I cried again, I cried so much he started crying. Finally I just got up and went back to the
receptionist and I called for a taxi. I got the taxi; I went over to my voice teacher’s house. He was giving a
class and he said, “Just go into the room, and I’ll be finished here soon.” He was giving a class to baritone,
beautiful, big, rich voice, but he put me to sleep. I woke up and it was dark and, Willkie, the voice teacher said
“come out, come out here”, and I went out and he said, “Now what is the matter?” and I said “Willkie I’m going
crazy, I’m about to hurt myself and I might kill god.” He said, “Here’s a yellow pad, write your blessing.” So I
said “I don’t want to hear that, listen I’m telling you how serious this is I’m about to kill my…” He said “no no,
write down that you can hear me say that, and think about all the people in the world who can’t hear, there be
nothing but murmur in the ear; who can’t hear their children when they call for help. Think of it; just write
down that you can hear.” “Now write down, that you know how to write. Write down that you can hold a pen.
Write down that you can speak; write down that you can see.”
Christ Church, when I finished that, I finished the whole page. From that day to this, I don’t complain. I will
protest [Laughter] – OH YES, if it’s not right I’ll be the tall black lady outside with a picket, oh yes I’ll protest,
but I don’t complain. Complaining, among other things, it does nothing to the reason for your complaint. And
more than that, it lets a brute know that a victim is in the neighborhood. So I don’t complain. From that day to
this I’ve written 31 books, all of them on yellow pads. I have people who type and use the computers and all
those other things that are in the office, but I write on a yellow pad.
When I said back there, “I wept, with gratitude” that these people are so bless to hear themselves sing, and to
sing, and to make the music; I said that weeping and my assistant came, I think this is the second box of
Kleenex. I was so grateful that your Pastor Cron has seen fit with others to do this series on courage and faith.
I was so; I just, as the cockney say I come all over queer. It is such a blessing and that first 19th century folk
song, actually the spiritual was inspired by the statement in Genesis. In Genesis we are told that rain persisted
so unrelenting that people thought it would never cease and in an attempt to put the people at ease, God put a
rainbow in the sky. That’s in Genesis, however, in the 19th Century some African American poet, lyricist,
maybe a woman I’m not sure one, anyway, said, no, God put the rainbow not just in the sky but in the clouds
themselves. Now we know the sun, the moon and stars all sorts of illumination are always in the firmament.
However, clouds come so lower and louder that the viewer can’t see the possibility of light. But if the night is
put right in the clouds themselves that means that the worst of times is the possibility of seeing hope. And so
the possibility of seeing hope develops us to develop courage.
Now I know that people may agree with me or not, as the case may be, but I believe that courage is the most
important of all the virtues. Because without courage you can’t practice any other virtue consistently. You can
be anything erratically: kind, fair, generous, courteous, just, merciful, anything every now and again, but to be
that thing time after time, when even your family, your friends are asking you “are you still seeing those people,
don’t you know they are gay?; don’t you know their black?, don’t you know what Black people do?; don’t you
know what White people have done?; what you mean, you mean you still seeing those Asians?; oh listen, did
you see what… listen…don’t…be careful; don’t you know what Arabs?; look here, watch it, be careful about
those Jews, be careful.” To be consistently fair, consistently kid, you have to have courage. Now I encourage
people to develop courage not by saying everybody has courage, I don’t say that. I think we’re born with the
possibility of developing courage. I think that if you think, I want to go out and pick up a hundred pound
weight, you don’t go out and start it, you start out by picking up little, five pound weights, then ten pounds,
twenty, then thirty, you develop the courage.
I encourage students, my students at various universities to first, don’t allow any racial pejoratives to be used in
your presence. None. Just none, about people who are there, about people who are not there, just none. But
now I do encourage, because I have had to, I learned this painfully; I do encourage you not to try to be
courageous all at one time. Many years ago I was at 20th Century Fox, as their first black female director, and a
group of the suits as they were called, came into my office, I had this incredible office, with ottomans and sofas;
and my secretary had an office with at least one sofa, and then the receptionist had an office; and these men
came and they stomped around, acting so proud of themselves, and in about twenty minutes used a pejorative, a
racial pejorative. Well the race wasn’t represented there, there was nobody of that race there but I said I’m
sorry, you can’t use that in my presence; and they said I can’t what? And I said no you can’t use racial
pejoratives in my office. So the big boss asked me, whose office? So I said well, I can’t stay here if you use
racial pejoratives; so one guy said, so o.k., I know, it’s about time for you to get more money right. So o.k.,
we’ll get our people to talk to your people in New York; so I said, no, it’s not that, it’s just that I know that to be
poisonous. I know it was poison when it was in a vile with P-O-I-S-O-N on it and the skull and bones, and just
because it’s in your mouth and you don’t mean any harm -- the content could be poured into Bavarian crystal,
it’s still poison. So I can’t have it in my office. One fellow said, what do you want? o.k., we gave you a
parking space between Alan Alda and David Frost. [Laughter] So, I will leave. I walked out; I walked out of
my office, through the secretaries’ office and out of the receptionist’s office and down the steps, and realized I
had left my purse. [Laughter] I would die before I’d go back. So I went around the villa and hid myself in the
shrubbery [Laughter] So I encourage you, don’t try to do it all in one time – make sure you have your wallet and
have your keys to your car. [Laughter]
I think it is important for us to find the courage, and then we can find it in many places. We can find it
sometimes in humor: I don’t trust people who don’t laugh, ever. People who act as they put airplane glue on the
back of their hand and stuck it to their forehead, and say I am serious. I don’t know if you’re serious or not,
you’re boring as hell. [Laughter] And I don’t trust people who don’t like themselves and say, I don’t like
myself but I love you. No no, there’s something wrong here. There’s an African saying, Ghanaian saying,
which is, be careful when a naked person offers you a shirt. Careful.
So, in order to develop the courage, I have to tell you about some of the people who’ve been rainbows in my
clouds. When I was 3 years old and my brother 5, we were living with my mother and father in Southern
California. We’d agree to disagree and separated and divorce and they sent me and my brother, well they didn’t
want us, neither of them wanted us. So my father’s mother, in a little village in Arkansas, said send the children
to me. So my mother and father, who were not all that swift at that time put Bailey, my brother, and me on a
train in Los Angeles with tags on our arms, no adult supervision, and the tags said, these children are to be given
to Mrs. Annie Henderson in Stamps, Arkansas. I remember this over 70 years ago; amazingly we actually
arrived thanks to the good officers of the dining car, waiters and the Pullman car porters. They took us off the
train and put us on another train. Fortunately…
[CAMERA FLASH INTERRUPTS DR. ANGELOU] – Miss don’t do the whole thing, thank you, thank you. I
appreciate you getting some but you know I’m afraid if you do the whole thing, you’d sell it and I’d get
nothing. Never mind about that, I know that sometimes people flash, and as you see, I don’t speak from notes
and I try to hold the idea from the time I walk out here until the time you see it’s in my mind, and the flashing it
upsets, makes me stone in my thoughts.
…Anyway, my mother and father put us on the train and we arrived in Stamps, Arkansas, a village about the
size of this cathedral, church. My father’s mother, grandmother Henderson, is very tall; when she died she was
over six foot, so when I reached her she must have been about 6’2” or 6’3”. She was old when I got there; I
mean she must have been about 50 years old. [Laughter] She and my father’s brother, his other sibling, owned
the only black owned store in the town, so they needed me and Bailey to work in the store. I think my
grandmother started to teach me to read that evening when we arrived. Uncle Willie taught me my times tables.
Uncle Willie would grab me right behind my clothes and stand me in front of a pot belly stove, and with the slur
attended to his condition he say “now sista I wancha ta do ya fourzees; sista do ya sevenzees; sista do ya
elevenzees.” I learned my multiplication tables exquisitely. I’m sure if I didn’t learn somehow he’d manage to
hold open up that pot belly stove throw me in it and close the stove. I found he was so tender hearted he
wouldn’t allow a spider or a flee to be caught and killed in the store. We had to catch it; Bailey and I caught it,
the offender, and took it outside, where Uncle Willie thought we let it go I guess. Uncle Willie, because of him,
I learned exquisitely and I learned to read because of momma.
I went down to Stamps…I must tell you a few things that happened before then. I stayed with momma and
Uncle Willie until I was about seven, and then we were taken up to St. Louis to my mother’s people, where they,
my mother returned to California to be with her family. We went there and her people were so erudite, they
were so exquisite, so sophisticated they even called Baloney, Bologna. [Laughter] They were way up there.
And they taught us to eat things like sliced bread and all that. I thought that we were going to become city kids.
Alas my mother’s boyfriend raped me. After much begging I told the name of the rapist to my brother. We
were in my mother’s mother’s car, Bailey and I were playing a game Monopoli, we called it Monopoli cause we
never heard it pronounced. When the police came in, here were white policemen in big suits, blue serge suits.
In the 30’s blue serge suits were about a ½ inch thick and the big brass buttons, shiny. They looked like giants,
and they told my mother’s mother that the man had been found dead, and it seemed he’d been kicked to death.
The statement so traumatized me that I had to stop talking. I thought my voice had killed him, and if I wasn’t
careful, if I spoke, my voice could go out and just kill anyone. Randomly. I could speak to Bailey, my brother,
because he loved me so much and I loved him so much, I could marry him. And so he was the only person I
spoke to, for almost seven years.
I’m sorry to say my brother died recently. He was living with me in North Carolina. I was giving an interview,
so the journalist was there and she asked, Ms. Angelou you didn’t speak to anyone save your brother for 6 years
or more. I said yes, that’s true, and so the journalist looked at my brother who was in a wheelchair, he had had a
number of strokes, but could manage to speak, and she asked, so Mr. Johnson what did you think? He said: to
tell you the truth I hardly understood anything she said. [Laughter] Brute, brute, I went over and pinched him.
But at that time, the people, my mother’s people, tried their best to woo me away from my mute-ism, but they
didn’t know what my voice can do, so fortunately they sent me and Bailey back to Stamps, to momma, to
grandmother Henderson. And my mother sit on a chair like this, and braid my hair, she’d put her dress down
like that, and I’d sit on a pillow on the floor; both of us would look out, I would grab my momma’s thighs, and
my hair was huge and very curly. And momma had her work cut out for her, she’d bend her hand like that and
put it around my neck so she wouldn’t beak my neck by accident; and she started brushing all this hair. She say,
“sista momma don’t care what all these people say about you, that you must be an idiot, that you must be a
moron, because you can’t talk. Sista momma don’t care, momma know when you and the good Lord get ready
you gonna be a teacher. You gonna teach all over this world.” I used to sit there and think, this poor ignorant
woman. [Laughter] I appreciate our director Cron for saying, you think I’m 55…but actually I think it’s well
over 60, and I just got another three or four days ago.
Momma was a rainbow in my cloud. Uncle Willie was a rainbow in my cloud. I’ve had so many rainbows,
some black ones and some white ones. Some fat ones and some thin ones. Some Jews and some Arabs. I’ve
had all sorts, Arabic; I’ve had Asian, Spanish speaking, all sorts, who gave me just a pat on the back.
Sometimes that’s all a person needs, for someone to say ooh I like that, I like that; that suits you. Sometimes a
person never knows, a person may have just hung up the phone from having a nurse say, uh Mr. Jones I’m sorry
but the doctor has looked at those x-rays again and we want you to come back in. Or someone has said, Mr.
Smith I’m sorry but we’re downsizing and we’re letting…you’ve become redundant, your position, and so we’d
like you to come in and get your belongings. What does it mean for somebody to say I admire you; you have
such a nice smile. You have no idea, what it means to be a rainbow in somebody’s cloud.
My Uncle Willie died years later, and I went down to Stamps to see about the property – my grandmother had
died too. And so I went down; I stopped in Little Rock. I was met by a great woman, a treasure, an American
treasure, her name is Daisy Bates, she died a few years ago; but when you look in your computer, Google,
you’ll find Daisy Bates. She met me at the airport, she said “girl…” I don’t have to tell you she was black
right… [Laughter], she said “girl, I know you’re in route to Stamps but I also talked to people in your office and
I know you’re going to stay the night here in Little Rock, and there’s somebody who’s dying to meet you. So I
said all right; she said I would like to bring him to your hotel. I said o.k.; she brought about 50 people to my
hotel. [Laughter] But she brought this black man who was all right, hello, thank you, woo…. [Laughter] I said
how do you do, he said “I don’t want to shake your hand I want to hug you.” I said I sure appreciate it; he gave
me a wonderful hug. He said “now you down here in Arkansas because Willie has died.” My uncle Willie was
so ashamed of being crippled, he wouldn’t leave Stamps. He wouldn’t even go to Louisville, Arkansas which
was five miles from Stamps and the county seat. And this man in a three piece suit way up north in Little Rock
said, “You know, the state of Arkansas lost a great man losing Willie.” I asked him, “Uncle Willie?” He said
the United States lost a great man losing Willie, I asked him W.M. Johnson, he said the world. He said, let me
sit down…
He said your Uncle Willie gave me a job in your store in the 20’s and 30’s, he paid me 10¢ a week; he made me
love to learn; he taught me my times tables. [Laugher] I asked him how’d he…”he used to grab me right back
here.” [Laughter] He said because of him I’m who I am today, you want to know who that is, and I said yes sir.
He said I’m Mayor of Little Rock Arkansas: one of the first blacks in the South. Willie, rainbow, in somebody’s
cloud. The Mayor said, “Now, when you come down tomorrow, by virtue of the power vested in me, I have a
police escort for you, and they will convoy you to Stamps, but I want you to stop in Louisville; there’s a good
old boy there, he’s a lawyer, he’ll look after your property. When Bailey and I were in Stamps, seeee this, the
boys, as is euphemistically called, euphemistically because nothing childish had ever happened to them; these
men would ride over into the black area on horseback and threaten and maim and kill people, because they
didn’t agree with God’s choice of the color of the people’s skin. Bailey and I would take the potatoes and
onions out of a tray and help my Uncle Willie to laboriously get down into the thing and we’d cover him with
potatoes and onions. It was dangerous if not fatal for any black man to be caught out in Stamps on a night when
the boys would ride. Then Bailey and I would look out the window, after Uncle Willie was there moaning, we’d
look out the window, peak, and there they would be stomping around in the clearing. Big guns, big men.
The next morning after I spoke to the Mayor, I went downstairs and there were eight white men, big guns, big
men, to look after me. Look at him, Willie, there, still being a rainbow in my cloud. The police followed me
down, we stopped in Louisville, and I stopped to see the lawyer. He was a good old boy; I expected him to be
an older black man with stud chain and a fob, and all that with a little paunch. A young white man ran out, he
said “Dr. Angelou I’m just delighted to meet you. The Mayor called me from Little Rock this morning, he’s the
most powerful black man I ever met; more important than that, he’s a noble man. Because of him I’m who I am
today.” I said, “Let me sit down first.” [Laughter] He said, “Mr. Busy, the Mayor, is the only child of a blind
mother and I’m the only child of a deaf mother and Mr. Busy caught hold of me when I was elven years old and
made me love to learn. And then he taught me I had to do that not just for my sake but for my mother’s sake;
and Dr. Angelou I’m not just a lawyer Maim I’m in the state legislature.” Willie…Willie, Willie, W.M.
Johnson.
Last year the ground was broken in Washington, D.C. to begin the building of the Martin Luther King
monument. I was a speaker, I went there to speak, when I got off the platform a young-ish white man came
holding a woman had his hand and was holding a toddler. The man said, “Ms. Angelou wait a minute, wait a
minute, I want my family to meet you.” I said yes, he said “our families are tied together, you know because
my grandfather was in the state legislature and he helped to see about your property in Arkansas. He was a
friend of Mr. Busy, the Mayor, in Little Rock, and I want you to know that I represent the state of Arkansas
Maim.” How can we say, who can say I’m not a rainbow in somebody’s life. How far, how wide, how deep,
how high the reach of that man’s influence, I don’t know. But I wrote a song for Ms. Roberta Flack and I’m
going to make sure that it’s left with Mr. Cron, on want it to be on the website. She sings it better than I do but I
wrote it. [Laughter]
[Maya Angelou sings/reads]…
Willie was a man without fame,
Hardly anybody knew his name.
Crippled and limping, always walking lame,
He said, “I keep on movin’
Movin’ just the same
Solitude was the climate in his head,
Emptiness was the partner in his bed,
Pain echoed in the steps of his tread,
He said, “I keep on followin’
Where the leaders led.
I will cry and I will die,
But my spirit is the soul of every spring,
Look for me and you will see
That I’m present in the songs that children sing.
People called him “Uncle,” “boy” and “Hey,”
Said, “You can’t live through this another day.”
And then they waited to hear what he would say.
He said, “I’m living
In the games that children play.
“You may enter my sleep, people my dreams,
And Threaten my early morning’s ease,
But I keep comin’ I’m followin’ I’m laughin’ I’m cryin’,
I’m certain as a summer breeze.”
“Call for me, call upon me.
My spirit is the surge of open seas.
Wait for me, wait upon me,
I’m the rustle in the autumn leaves.”
“When the sun rises
I am the time.
When the children live and learn and love and laugh
I am the Rhyme.”
“You may call me cripple Willie.”
[Applause]
I want to read a poem, now you knew I was going to read a poem. I mean that’s what I do, I do. I should tell
you why I’m in this chair; because I have a very bad…the right knee is very bad. This was always called the
good knee. About six months ago this knee became sympathetic to that knee, and both are terrible. [Laughter]
And, also, I got on these bad glasses, o.k. so, the sun’s not shining here, I’ll give you that, but I’ve always had
an errant right eye, and it just kind of slides. Recently it’s slid more and more, and I’ve seen photographs of
myself with this eye going straight ahead, as it’s supposed to do, and this one way up here. And so, I’m afraid
that one day it might decide to just go all the way around. [Laughter] So I wear this so not to make you ill at
east. [Laughter] See, I like the fact that you all laugh; you really must. So I write poetry too, to help myself. I
went into a health food store years ago, and it was called a Health Food Diner. I went in, I wasn’t a vegetarian
and I’m not one now. But you know, every now and again you just sort of do want greens and a baked potatoe
or rice and a salad. I went into the restaurant; I wanted a salad and a baked potatoe. The waitress came, she got
my order, she went away, I was a smoker then, I’m not proud of that but I’m happy to say I’ve been free of
nicotine for over twenty years. I pray for anybody, please, if you still smoke stop today. And if you’ve smoked
for some time, I hope you live long enough to say I’m free of it for twenty years. So anyway at that time I was
a smoker. She took my order; I reached into my purse and got out an unopened pack of cigarettes, within a
moment she was back. She put her face almost into my face, she said “don’t you dare. That’s nasty, nasty,
nasty, so filthy, filthy.” [Laughter] So I said, “miss, control yourself, you look like you biding yourself up to hit
me. Wrong choice.” [Laughter] Wrong. She said “you have endangered everybody in this place.” So I looked
at the people at the counter and at the table. So I said these people just started coming here, she said “no
they’ve been coming for years.” I said come here, let me tell you something: don’t tell anyone that, looking that
bad and looking no better for twenty years. [Laughter] My dear don’t tell a soul. I went home and wrote this
for myself and I’m going to add it to the other poem.
[Maya Angelou reads]….
The Health-Food Diner
No sprouted wheat and soya shoots
And Brussels in a cake,
Carrot straw and spinach raw,
(Today, I need a steak).
Not thick brown rice and rice pilaw
Or mushrooms creamed on toast,
Turnips mashed and parsnips hashed,
(I'm dreaming of a roast).
Health-food folks around the world
Are thinned by anxious zeal,
They look for help in seafood kelp
(I count on breaded veal).
No smoking signs, raw mustard greens,
Zucchini by the ton,
Uncooked kale and bodies frail
Are sure to make me run
to
Loins of pork and chicken thighs
And standing rib, so prime,
Pork chops brown and fresh ground round
(I crave them all the time).
Irish stews and boiled corned beef
and hot dogs by the scores,
or any place that saves a space
For smoking carnivores.
[Laughter and Applause]
I am so pleased to have a chance to speak on courage and faith. I know you know faith and all that it is and
there are some who never have their faith questioned I guess, or are they just lying. I don’t know. But I am
blessed to be full of faith. I don’t know how, sometimes every day, sometimes once a month, once a year. I
wonder is it true, is it? Fortunately for me, I believe it’s true enough that as soon as I hear that impression I run
to God and say, you don’t know what they’ve been saying about you. It is a wonderful thing to develop the
courage to have faith, and to believe it not just for yourself but in other people. That a real difficulty. I know
that I’m a child of God, I know that. My difficulty comes when I see the brute, the bigot, the batterer, and for
me to know he’s a child of God, she’s a child of God. Whether he knows it or not, I’m supposed to know it.
That is what being a Christian is supposed to be, I think. It’s like being a Jew, or Buddhist, or Muslim, I know
there are people who say you can’t – I don’t know that. All I know is, whenever someone walks up to me and
gives me a hand shake and says “I’m a Christian”, I say “already?” [Laughter] You already got it? I work at it,
I work at it all the time, and blow it about fifty times a day. And when I say my prayers at night I say, hmmm, I
only blew it fifty times. Well I forgive myself, I ask forgiveness of anybody whose feelings I injured, I beg
forgiveness of God and then I promise not to do less tomorrow, maybe forty-nine. It is amazing, when you
really want to be a Christian; you really want to live that life, being kind, being generous, being merciful, being
just, hoping for and working for equal rights for all human beings, the little ones, large ones, all of them; with
great and noble effort, it’s hard work as you know. I’m not telling you anything you don’t know. It’s hard work
but it’s noble work, because eventually when that day comes, when we go to that place inside ourselves, which I
hope we’ve kept pristine, that place we go when we need God itself; am I able to say I am here.
[Maya Angelou sings]…I’m thine oh Lord, I’ve heard thy voice speak its love for me, and I long to be in arms
of love and drawn closer, Lord, to thee.
When you get to that place and to hear as the old spiritual says “My child welcome.” Ah! So I mean that keeps
me on my toes, and keeps me not only forgiving other people but forgiving myself. That's the hard work. Yeah
well okeydokey, so you did that, I forgive you. But to really mean it; if you knew better you you’d do better.
People can only do what they know to do, not what you think they should know, not what they say they know.
It has to be automatic and if it isn’t, you work at it.
I know very well that these great singers are coming back again, and then I’m coming back out to you again; I
would ask if, director Cron, could you please bring the singers out and let me look at their faces.
[MAYA ANGELOU EXITS STAGE]
[ROB MATHES RETURNS TO THE STAGE]
We are going to do two more for you, beginning with, we’re going to begin with “Steal Away To Jesus” and this
features James “D Train” Williams.
“Steal Away To Jesus” [Music]
[Applause]
James Williams! We’re going to finish this evening with one of the great ones of all times, and many of these
spirituals were written in code. Some of which we’re still decoding. But this one seems pretty clear that Sweet
Chariot was the underground railroad coming forward to carry the slaves home to the North and this is “Swing
Low Sweet Chariot”. And once more let me introduce these great singers and musician: [Applause] I’m Rob
Mathes, Angela Clemmons, Vaneese Thomas, James Williams, Mike Harvey, Ira Coleman, Joe Bonadio, Chris
Coogan. [Applause]
“Swing Low Sweet Chariot” [Music]
[Applause]
[MAYA ANGELOU RETURNS TO THE STAGE, SINGING] [Applause]
Why don’t you swing down chariot stop and let me ride, swing down chariot stop [Applause] and let me ride,
rock me lord, rock me lord calm and easy, I’ve got a home…those people have sang that song. My lord, what a
blessing. Would you help me to thank them again? [Applause] What about Mathes, what about that?!
[Applause] Please, come on, my lord, you people have played us some music and played us some songs tonight
that so been lifting our spirits. I know I’m lifted, my spirits, and every time I feel it, I feel like dancing and
saying thank you. Thank you and I certainly appreciate you; I appreciate Christ Church; I appreciate the
invitation to come. And I appreciate that you are feeling the courage and faith. So important, so necessary this
time in our lives.
We are in a time where there are those who would polarize us even more, separate us even. The statement is:
“Homo sum, humani nil a me alienum puto”. “I am a human being, nothing human can be alien to me.” It’s so
important to understand that and internalize it. So that helps you to stop from saying they and them and those,
and it helps you to say I and we and us. We are more alike than unalike. The statement was made by Terence,
and when you look in your encyclopedia under Terence, with one “r”, you will find in italics Terentius Afer. He
was an African, a slave; he was sold to a Roman Senator. The Senator freed him; he became the most popular
playwright in Rome. Five of his plays and that one statement have come down to us from 154 BC. “I am a
human being; nothing human can be alien to me.” Now if you can internalize that, and just that, it means of
course if you hear about the most heinous crime committed by a human being, you can’t say I could never do
that. What you have to say is I intend to never to do it; I intend to use my energies constructively as opposed
to destructively. But if a human being did it…well wait a minute…now if you can do that with a negative, just
think of what you can do with a positive. If someone dares to dream a great dream, dares to love someone, has
the unmitigated gall to accept love in return…imagine, you can do it. You can actually do it. I thought so
seriously about coming back after having these incredible singers and the incredible musicians, but I’m a human
being, and so what. I had to say that to myself ten times, I mean I’m following them. But then their human just
as I am. There are a couple of poems I wanted to say to you, to encourage you more in this search for the place
to create and recreate and continue to increase the courage and the faith.
In those years when I didn’t speak I read everything I could. There was a black lady in my town who took me
to a school, a black school and she told me she wanted me to read every book in the library. There may have
been two or three hundred books in the library. I think I have that many on one shelf in my library at home. I
thought I would try to read them, I did read and then I memorized. So I had the ability to memorize because I
didn’t talk, so what else was there to do. I memorized James Weldon Johnson, Countee Cullen, Langston
Hughes. I memorized Shakespeare. I had some sixty sonnets of Shakespeare. I thought at one time
Shakespeare was probably a black girl... [Laughter]…who had been raped. I couldn’t believe that anyone but a
black girl, in the South, who was speechless, could understand…
When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf Heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon myself, and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featur'd like him, like him with friends possess'd,
Desiring this man's art, and that man's scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least:
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Haply I think on thee,--and then my state
(Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth) sings hymns at heaven's gate;
For thy sweet love remember'd such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with kings'.
[Sonnet 29]
I knew he was writing about my grandmother, Missy Annie Henson and Uncle Willie. I knew that he was
writing about my brother Bailey, and that he was a girl. The important, it seems to me, the important places
when we find ourselves to be abused, are the places when we can be rainbows in somebody’s cloud. Someone
who may not look like us, someone who may call God a different name than we call God – if they call God at
all. And yet we have the will and the intelligence, I don’t mean intellect, but true intelligence, that which used
to be called Mother Wit, that intelligence that was in you in your mother’s womb. That kind of intelligence. To
know you can be of use. To never agree to be abused, misused, but to always be of use. Why else are you here,
except to be of use to somebody? So, I had to cancel a number of speaking engagements because I was invited
to receive that Medal of Freedom, and I thought of my grandma and my great-grandma who’d been born a
slave; I thought of all the Africans brought to what was to become the United States from 1619 to 1865 on slave
ships, lying spoon fashion on filthy hatches of slave ships, and in their own and in each other’s excrement and
urine and menstrual flow, body sweat. I thought of them got out and stood on auction blocks. And then I
thought of all the immigrants from Italy, from Hungary, from Eastern Europe. I thought of the immigrants
coming from Ireland, from Scandinavia from new and old Delhi, from South America – I thought of everybody
– arriving, coming here on a nightmare praying for a dream. Praying for freedom, freedom from religious
persecution; freedom from racial persecution; freedom from the persecution of poverty and ignorance. And I
thought, that’s how I will accept it. I will go on the platform and when I’m given the Medal of Freedom I will
say I’m taking this for all of us. And so Stephie, my assistant and daughter said to me tonight, please bring the
medal and show it, because I did, I take it for you. [Applause] It’s for us. I would like all the little children,
there are some children here. I would like the small children, I’ve met some, and if there are more, I’d like
them to come back stage after; I have a word for them.
But just now, I’m going to…after I had written the inaugural poem for President Clinton’s inauguration…Ms.
Stephie, someone took my book away…I know this one, but I don’t know it by heart. I thought of going to
write the piece for Mr. Clinton and I thought it’s for all of us…and then, the officials at United Nations
telephone and wrote to me and asked if I would write a poem for the world – and I said yes, thank you. I
always hasten to say yes when anything good is offered, always say yes. And then, then you start praying a lot
and I go to the Preacher, the Priest and the Rabbi and the Imam and everybody, then little children. I go to the
library. When I thought about United Nations, when it was founded in San Francisco I was 16 years old. I was
6 foot tall. I was black, even then. [Laughter] I was about to finish High School. I was pregnant and
unmarried. And I read in the newspapers of the day, that simultaneous translators would be paid an unheard of
amount of $150 a week, and I thought…I knew I had a penchant for languages, probably from all the years of
making myself just one ear. I just thought of my whole body as an ear, so I could absorb something. And I
thought if I wasn’t 6 foot tall and black, and female and pregnant and unmarried, and uneducated, I could go
into that building. So I would go down and watch as the people went into that building where United Nations
was being founded, and there I watch Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt, who’d go in with her friend a black educator.
They’d both walk in and I just wept, copiously. Can you imagine, how I felt, all those years later to be asked to
come into the building that they designated to be the United Nations building in San Francisco? Imagine, me,
Maya Angelou. I could not have done it without all those rainbows in my clouds, I could never have done it – I
wouldn’t be here today. This is how important you are, how important each of us is. So this is another poem
I’m reading, it’s called “A Brave and Startling Truth”
[Maya Angelou reads]
A Brave and Startling Truth
We, this people, on a small and lonely planet
Traveling through casual space
Past aloof stars, across the way of indifferent suns
To a destination where all signs tell us
It is possible and imperative that we learn
A brave and startling truth
And when we come to it
To the day of peacemaking
When we release our fingers
From fists of hostility
When the curtain falls on the minstrel show of hate
And faces sooted with scorn have been scrubbed clean
When battlefields and coliseum
No longer rake our unique and particular sons and daughters
Up with the bruised and bloody grass
To lay them in identical plots in foreign soil
When the rapacious screaming in the temples
When the shouting rackets in the churches have ceased
When we let the rifles fall from our shoulders
And children dress their dolls in flags of truce
When land mines have been removed
And the aged can walk into their evenings of peace
When childhood dreams are not kicked awake
By nightmares of casual and sexual abuse
When we come to it
Then we will confess that not the Pyramids
With their stones laid in unique particular perfection
Nor the Gardens of Babylon
Hanging as collected beauty
In our collective memory
Nor the Grand Canyon
Kindle into delicious color
By Western sunsets
Those are not the only wonders of the world
When we come to it
We must confess that we whose hands can strike in such a twinkling
That we can sap life from the living
That those same hands can caress with such tenderness
That the happy back is glad to stand erect
And the proud chin is glad to be pulled back
When we come to it
We have to confess
That not the blue Danube flowing its soul into you
Nor Mount Fuji stretching to the rising sun
Neither Father Amazon nor Mother Mississippi who, without favor,
Nurture all creatures on their shores and in the depths
Those are not the only wonders of the world
We, this people, made on this earth of this earth,
Have the power to create for this earth
A climate where every man and every woman
Can live freely without sanctimonious piety
Without crippling fear
When we come to it
We have to confess that we are the wonder
We are the true miraculous creatures
We are the wonder of this world
That is when… [Maya Angelou sings]…when it look like the sun wasn’t gonna shine anymore…
When each of us can say
All my life and all my consciousness intelligence
Have been dedicated to the most noble cause in the world
The liberation of the human mind and spirit
Beginning with my own
When I can say, I will be a rainbow in somebody’s cloud.
Thank you.
[APPLAUSE, APPLAUSE, APPLAUSE]
[IAN CRON RETURNS TO THE STAGE]
Thank you one and all, you do not appear as though you want to leave. [Laughter] But our evening is done. We
thank you so much for coming. We thank Rob Mathes and this beautiful, beautiful musical miracle. [Applause]
And of course, the human miracle of Dr. Maya Angelou. We thank you so much, blessing on your night and
travel safely.
[END OF AUDIO]

CONVERSATIONS on COURAGE and FAITH: MAYA ANGELOU

Transcription

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