Maya Angelou

Speaker 10:00

Hello, I'm Kirstie Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs Archive. For rights reasons we've had to shorten the music. The programme was originally broadcast in nineteen eighty seven, and the presenter was Michael Parkinson.

Presenter0:33

Autobiography can be stranger than fiction. Indeed, it would take a novelist of exceptional imagination to invent a story as extraordinary as our Castaway's.

Presenter0:43

And even if he came close, the chances are he wouldn't be believed. Castaway's first volume of autobiography, called I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, was a bestseller both here and in her native America. Her fifth volume, called All God's Children Need Travelling Shoes, has just been published. The books begin with a child growing up with prejudice and abuse in the American South, and end in Ghana, where the adult seeks a homecoming in what she imagines to be the promised land.

Presenter1:10

In between times she's been a writer, a stripper, political activist, waitress, editor, singer, actress, and a dancer, and a few more things besides. She is Maya Angelou.

Presenter1:22

Maya, we're going to put you on this desert island with these eight records. Now, I assume, coming from where you did, which from the deep South of America, that music in fact has played a very significant part in your life.

Maya Angelou1:32

Very.

Presenter1:33

Yes. When do you first remember its influence? How old would you be?

Maya Angelou1:37

Oh, probably about four or five.

Maya Angelou1:41

My grandmother had a wonderful voice.

Maya Angelou1:44

And she sang in church.

Maya Angelou1:47

And she'd sing around the house, unless she was asked to sing. If um I'd ask her, Mamma, would you please sing? She'd say, Now goin' girl, you know mamma can't sing.

Maya Angelou1:59

But if you'd leave her alone, she'd open this magnificent voice up and put it out in the air like hot gold.

Maya Angelou2:10

you know, like melting gold, it seemed to me.

Maya Angelou2:13

And um the only voice similar to hers that I can remember I mean, as I remember her voice is Mahalia Jackson.

Presenter2:23

The first choice inevitably then has got to be Mahale Jackson. Yes. Singing what?

Maya Angelou2:26

Uh

Maya Angelou2:28

How great thou art

Speaker 32:38

Toothy

Speaker 32:42

How great thou art.

Speaker 32:54

Ha ha

Speaker 32:55

Hooray!

Speaker 32:58

Thou oh

Presenter3:02

That was great, Mahalia Jackson, how great thou art. I mean, that begs the question actually. Let me ask you it. I mean, why is there this wonderful tradition and quality in in black singing? I mean, is it because it comes from the experience, the black experience, or is it because there's a lack of embarrassment about opening their mouths and singing?

Maya Angelou3:19

Well, there I suppose both. I think it's somewhere beyond

Maya Angelou3:24

A lack of embarrassment.

Maya Angelou3:26

I think there is the

Maya Angelou3:29

Ability

Maya Angelou3:31

To submit

Maya Angelou3:33

Tufili

Maya Angelou3:35

When you submit to feeling, embarrassment is not in it. It doesn't even arise. You admit.

Maya Angelou3:43

That you are submitting.

Maya Angelou3:45

and feeling lonely or happy

Maya Angelou3:48

and allow, then, that particular or those conflicting emotions to inform.

Maya Angelou3:56

The expression.

Speaker 33:57

Hmm.

Maya Angelou3:59

Um I think

Maya Angelou4:01

It is to be found mostly among black Americans.

Maya Angelou4:06

I don't think it it's um physiological.

Maya Angelou4:11

I mean, people are not born with the great vocal cords. I mean, one has only to hear

Maya Angelou4:17

Ray Charles and know that, or or L Louis Armstrong, and know that there

Maya Angelou4:23

The pipes were not, you know, for the Bel Canto, you know.

Maya Angelou4:28

But it is the emotion which informs the ear, of course, the musical ear. And so the ear is in is educated to that early on by listening to spirituals and gospel music and

Maya Angelou4:42

Long Me the Hymns and

Maya Angelou4:45

And then of course blues and jazz.

Presenter4:48

What about your next choice of record then? Because this is a jazz man, isn't it? This is Max Roach. Yes.

Presenter5:21

Max Roach and A Quiet Plays.

Presenter5:24

Maya Angelou, you mentioned there you were brought up by your grandmother. In fact, uh your parents broke up when you were three and your brother was four. And you were sent to Stamps in in Arkansas, in the south of America. Now that was also, apart from its geographical um

Presenter5:38

Placing. The moment in history, that was the Depression, wasn't it? What do you remember of that?

Maya Angelou5:41

Yes it was.

Maya Angelou5:44

Well

Maya Angelou5:45

I remember my grandmother owned a store. It was the only black owned store in the town.

Maya Angelou5:51

And so we had.

Maya Angelou5:52

Goods on the shelves.

Maya Angelou5:55

Mamma, however, was a typical West African market woman. I never knew that until I moved to West Africa.

Maya Angelou6:03

But she sold things, so the people had no money, but the poorer people would go down and get the hand outs powdered eggs, powdered milk.

Maya Angelou6:17

Lard, um margarine, which was white ju just like lard, but with yellow stuff you could mix with it, make it buttercoloured.

Maya Angelou6:27

And they would bring that stuff back to the store and swap with my grandmother. She would give them tins, so many tins of mackerel in exchange for so many buckets of powdered eggs. Well, it turned out my brother and I were the only kids in the school who were eating powdered eggs.

Maya Angelou6:48

Everybody else if we wanted peanut butter, we'd have to go round to somebody's back door because mama would have traded.

Maya Angelou6:56

Our peanut butter for some powdered milk, which is horrible.

Presenter7:01

Uh

Presenter7:02

Was it very r rigidly segregated?

Maya Angelou7:04

B

Presenter7:04

Absolutely. Wh did what when did you first come across directly racial prejudice?

Maya Angelou7:11

Well, I guess I was about.

Maya Angelou7:14

Eight

Maya Angelou7:15

We went to the movies, my brother and I.

Maya Angelou7:20

And

Maya Angelou7:21

There was a girl, a white girl, behind the in in the box office.

Maya Angelou7:27

Who would take the dimes of all the white kids?

Maya Angelou7:32

take them by hand.

Maya Angelou7:34

But when my brother put our dimes up, she had a cigar box, and she would tell him rake them into the cigar box.

Maya Angelou7:43

Now, mind you, she was from a family so poor they lived on my grandmother's land.

Maya Angelou7:50

And I couldn't believe this meanness And then all the white kids would go right in through the front door, and the black kids would have to go up a very rickety outside staircase. It was very dangerous, I thought. I mean, it was so shaky.

Maya Angelou8:07

and then sort of almost crawl into a roof.

Maya Angelou8:11

which hadn't been swept, I guess, since um the place had been built. So there were peanut shells and paper and all that stuff on the floor.

Maya Angelou8:21

It was pitched so I mean, it was at such a rate, at such an angle.

Maya Angelou8:26

This balcony, which they called the Buzzard's Roost.

Maya Angelou8:31

It was pitched so that you had the feeling you might topple down on top of all those white folks. You know. It was just terrible. And I cried. I I couldn't believe that

Maya Angelou8:43

I was such a nice girl, you know. By that time I'd stopped talking too, so I was really nice. I didn't lie, because I couldn't speak, you know.

Maya Angelou8:52

And there I I I was being forced to

Maya Angelou8:55

Live like that.

Presenter8:57

Well let's talk about the reason why he became mute in a moment. Let's now have another choice of record, please, Maya.

Maya Angelou9:02

Well, I would choose Roberta Flack's Killing Me Softly.

Speaker 39:07

And clear and strong Strumming my bed with his finger

Speaker 39:13

Singing my life with his words

Speaker 39:17

Killing me softly with this song Killing me softly with this song Telling my whole life

Speaker 39:27

His words giving me a soft knee.

Speaker 39:32

With this song

Presenter9:34

Roberta Flack and Killing Me Softly. Maya Angelou, you mentioned there just before we played that record that uh at the age of about eight you were mute. What were the circumstances of that?

Maya Angelou9:46

Pretty dreadful.

Maya Angelou9:48

When I was seven and a half I was raped by uh my mother's boyfriend. And the um rapist

Maya Angelou9:59

was killed.

Maya Angelou10:01

The policeman told my grandmother my mother's mother.

Maya Angelou10:05

with whom I was staying.

Maya Angelou10:07

That um

Maya Angelou10:09

The man had been kicked to death, they thought.

Maya Angelou10:14

And I heard that and somehow, with my seven and a half year old logic, I decided that my voice had killed him.

Maya Angelou10:28

That because I told who did it.

Maya Angelou10:33

That my voice was the culprit.

Maya Angelou10:36

And so I decided that I'd better not talk, because anybody whose name I called or who heard me

Maya Angelou10:47

might die.

Maya Angelou10:49

So I stop.

Presenter10:50

And how long did that last?

Presenter10:52

About five years. And what rescued you from that silence?

Maya Angelou10:57

Poetry.

Speaker 310:59

Yeah.

Presenter10:59

Uh

Speaker 310:59

Uh

Maya Angelou10:59

I loved poetry, and a woman in my town, a black lady.

Maya Angelou11:06

started me at about eight.

Maya Angelou11:08

To reading the books in the library.

Maya Angelou11:11

I kept a tablet.

Maya Angelou11:13

and I would write on the tablet whenever anybody asked me anything.

Maya Angelou11:18

And in the schools, because mamma, my grandmother owned most of the land and lots of the land rather than that

Maya Angelou11:25

People

Maya Angelou11:26

sort of couldn't be too unkind, you know,'cause I was her California grandbaby.

Maya Angelou11:32

Although out of her hearing they would say things to me about me like this Mm mm It's a shame Sister Henderson's California granddaughter done gone mental. The brutes

Maya Angelou11:46

But um finally Mrs. Flowers, this lovely lady, had me over to her house. I was about almost twelve.

Maya Angelou11:58

And

Maya Angelou12:00

She would ask me about things I'd read and what did I like, and I'd write.

Maya Angelou12:04

And she said, You think you like poetry, you don't like poetry.

Maya Angelou12:09

Well, I couldn't believe that. She knew I loved it. She said, No, you don't like poetry. I was writing furiously. I love it.

Maya Angelou12:16

She said, You'll never like it until you speak it, until you feel it come across your tongue, through your teeth, over your lips. You will never love poetry. I ran out of her house.

Maya Angelou12:30

I ran to the store. She came to the store.

Maya Angelou12:33

And she pointed her finger at me, which is a very serious thing, Michael, for black Americans.

Maya Angelou12:39

We have a saying that goes from Jesse Jackson to the Wino on the street corner.

Maya Angelou12:46

Don't put your finger in my face That is very serious.

Maya Angelou12:51

She pointed her finger at me, which is I mean, she knew better. But just to really shock me, she said, You don't like poetry. She continued harassing me for months.

Maya Angelou13:04

until finally I went under the house.

Maya Angelou13:06

And I tried to speak poetry. And I had a voice. And

Maya Angelou13:14

So I Mrs Flowers and Poetry returned my voice to me.

Presenter13:19

Yeah.

Maya Angelou13:19

No that's

Presenter13:20

Choice of record, please.

Maya Angelou13:20

Stevie Wonder, I just called to say I love you.

Speaker 313:26

I just call

Speaker 313:29

To say

Speaker 313:31

I love you.

Speaker 313:35

I just go.

Speaker 313:38

To say how much I give

Speaker 313:43

I just gone.

Speaker 313:46

To say

Speaker 313:48

I love you.

Speaker 313:52

And I mean it from the bottom of my heart.

Presenter13:58

Stevie Wonder, I just called to say I love you.

Presenter14:01

Maria Angelou, the character who comes out in your books very, very strongly, is your mother. She was plainly a very remarkable woman, still alive.

Maya Angelou14:09

Still alive, I'm happy to say.

Presenter14:11

A merchant seaman.

Maya Angelou14:12

But she's retired from the merchant

Presenter14:13

Yeah.

Maya Angelou14:16

How did she go get in in the first place? Well, I called her.

Presenter14:18

Two.

Maya Angelou14:20

In nineteen fifty nine.

Maya Angelou14:22

I was going to go to New York.

Maya Angelou14:24

And I was living in Southern California and she in San Francisco and we like each other.

Maya Angelou14:31

So I called and asked her to meet me in the middle of the state because I was going to New York. She said, Oh, baby And this is the way she

Maya Angelou14:40

She's about five four, five three and a half. I'm six foot. She still talks to me the same way. Oh, baby, mother's just so glad to been mother wanted to see you too, because I'm going to sea. So I said, You're going to see what? She said, I'm going to become a seaman.

Maya Angelou14:59

No, why, Mom? I mean, she owned hotels, right? She was a surgical nurse. She's a real estate broker.

Maya Angelou15:08

Go to see? She said yes, because they told me they wouldn't l let black women in their union. You know what I told them? Baby, I told them you want a bet She said I'll put my foot in that door up to my hip.

Maya Angelou15:21

Till women of every color would walk over my foot, get in that union, get aboard a ship, and go to sea. And when she retired in nineteen eighty,

Maya Angelou15:31

The uh black, white, Hispanic and Asian women ship out of San Francisco, and they gave a party for her.

Maya Angelou15:39

It was wonderful. They called this little bitty woman Mother of the Sea.

Maya Angelou15:44

So she's retired. But she founded an organization called Black Women for Humanity. She's head of Black Women Political Caucus. She's one of the directors of the Blind Center in her town. And when she couldn't she found the blind people didn't have things to do, so she bought a loom, had somebody teach her how to work the loom, and now she teaches the blind people how to weave.

Maya Angelou16:12

She's a Grand Matron of the Eastern Stard, past daughter ruler of the Elks. I mean, she's out.

Maya Angelou16:22

Funny lady, too. The funniest woman in the world, my mom.

Maya Angelou16:28

Another choice of record, please, ma'am. Sarah Vaughan, East of the Sun.

Speaker 316:33

Oh, harmony of blow to a lovely tune East of the Sun and West.

Speaker 316:48

Have the moon.

Speaker 316:50

Oh dear

Speaker 316:57

East of the sun.

Speaker 317:00

Banway.

Presenter17:04

Servon and East of the Sun.

Presenter17:07

Maya, you've written so far five volumes of autobiography. The the fifth has just been uh lately published. Might you try a novel, do you think?

Maya Angelou17:16

I don't really do fiction very well. I've written short stories just because they are so challenging.

Maya Angelou17:25

I was thinking about doing a biography.

Maya Angelou17:28

I'd like to do a book on my mom.

Presenter17:30

Hm. You could argue, as I said in the introduction to this programme, that I mean

Presenter17:34

It would take a novelist of exceptional imagination to invent a life like you've had. So far. So far, so far. So far, so good. I mean, it it it is uh even you must when you when you recall it must wonder how remarkable it's been.

Maya Angelou17:48

I don't really. You know, it's sort of like you don't really know yourself. Um it seemed very normal to me.

Maya Angelou17:56

Um it still does.

Maya Angelou17:59

I got a phone call some time ago from two black American male f journalists who called from different parts of the country and and talked to me at the same time.

Maya Angelou18:10

And they said, First, we want to thank you. You love black men, and you say so and show us in your work.

Maya Angelou18:17

And we appreciate that, but now that you have divorced your most recent husband, the Englishman,

Maya Angelou18:25

Do you think you will?

Maya Angelou18:27

Now, um, marry a black American man.

Maya Angelou18:31

So I said, well

Maya Angelou18:32

I'm not sure. I mean, I w I would like it to be the next

Maya Angelou18:36

Interest to be a black American c because then I don't have to translate myself. You know, I don't have to explain why I go, mm-mm, mm-mm-mm. You know.

Maya Angelou18:46

But uh on the other hand,

Maya Angelou18:48

I said to them, If the next person

Maya Angelou18:52

who comes along and cares for me and makes me laugh.

Maya Angelou18:57

happens to be a four foot tall five hundred pound Japanese sumitomo wrestler. I will marry him and make no apology to anyone.

Maya Angelou19:06

Now that to me is very normal. Of course it wouldn't seem normal to people who look at me if I walk down the street with somebody who is a Japanese sumitomo wrestler and we call each other darling.

Maya Angelou19:19

But it would be normal to me.

Maya Angelou19:21

Do you see what I mean? Yeah.

Presenter19:23

Another choice of record.

Maya Angelou19:25

Well, Franks and Natchez won for the road.

Speaker 319:30

So set'em up, Joe!

Speaker 319:33

I've got a little story.

Speaker 319:36

You oughta know.

Speaker 319:41

We're drinking my friends

Speaker 319:45

To the end of a brief episode

Speaker 319:52

Make it one for my baby and one more

Speaker 319:58

For the role.

Presenter20:00

As Frank Sonata, one of the best saloon songs ever written, one for my baby, one more for the road, by Johnny Mercer, in fact.

Presenter20:07

Mayra Angelou, you're talking there about the fantasy of walking down the road with a Japanese summaresta, but in fact you've described yourself as six foot, black, and female.

Presenter20:17

I want to ask a question that might sound silly, but but it's it's serious actually. Have you ever wished you were six foot white and male?

Maya Angelou20:23

No, no, no.

Presenter20:24

Go ahead.

Maya Angelou20:26

I wouldn't want all that uh

Maya Angelou20:30

Oh, my God are those unfortunate, unachievable expectations

Maya Angelou20:38

My expectations are just beyond my reach.

Maya Angelou20:43

And they have to do with me.

Maya Angelou20:45

Not with the world.

Maya Angelou20:48

I hope to become a better human being.

Maya Angelou20:53

A kinder.

Maya Angelou20:55

Wiser.

Maya Angelou20:56

Funnier.

Maya Angelou20:58

more courageous human being.

Maya Angelou21:00

For me.

Maya Angelou21:02

I think a number of white males.

Maya Angelou21:05

have the expectation.

Maya Angelou21:08

of making other people

Maya Angelou21:10

Conform for them.

Maya Angelou21:13

My fantasy.

Maya Angelou21:16

is to be.

Maya Angelou21:18

Six foot tall.

Maya Angelou21:20

Black female.

Maya Angelou21:22

American, a writer.

Maya Angelou21:25

Successful, who laughs a lot?

Maya Angelou21:28

and drinks just enough Dewar's white label, scotch.

Maya Angelou21:33

And the little white one.

Maya Angelou21:35

And goes to church on Sunday and really means it. And loves her mother. Yes, and loves her mother.

Presenter21:41

Let's have another choice of record.

Maya Angelou21:43

Summer time

Maya Angelou21:45

Sung by Leontine Price.

Presenter22:13

Lowntine Price singing summertime from Gershwin's Porgy and Bess.

Presenter22:18

Maya Angelou, as I say, you've written five volumes of autobiography. Is there more to come? And and and if there is, what's the story going to tell this time?

Maya Angelou22:27

I suppose there will be a sixth and final book.

Maya Angelou22:31

Which will lead me up to writing Caged Bird. I can't write about writing Caged Bird.

Maya Angelou22:39

It's one I I will hesitate some time before attempting to write. I won't rush to it, because it has to begin with the assassination of Malcolm X., who was a friend and brother to me.

Maya Angelou22:56

and then of Martin King.

Maya Angelou23:00

Who was a friend and

Maya Angelou23:03

Leader

Maya Angelou23:04

For me.

Maya Angelou23:05

It's a very hard book.

Maya Angelou23:08

I don't know when I will.

Maya Angelou23:10

Attempted.

Presenter23:11

Given that that it would start there, and given that that might be the kind of centrepiece of the of the autobiography, those two dreadful happenings, will the end of the book, do you think, be optimistic yes?

Maya Angelou23:21

Yes, indeed, because I would be just about to write I Know Why the Caged Bird Sing.

Maya Angelou23:26

And why I thought it was important to write.

Maya Angelou23:31

of one's life, using the first person singular, but meaning the third person plural, really to try to write it so well that a middle aged, middle class white woman in Dorset can read it and say that's the truth that is a human truth.

Maya Angelou23:49

or an Asian man with the braid still, you know, laughter from out of um Maxine Hong Kingston's book A Warrior Woman.

Maya Angelou23:59

could read it and say that's right, I know that's right. I'm sorry that happened to that human being, because I would hate for it to happen to me. Or I'm glad it happened. So the last book in the series will have to be a

Maya Angelou24:15

Hopeful.

Maya Angelou24:16

Which is what I am. I mean, I'm an incurable I hope incurable optimist.

Maya Angelou24:22

Otherwise I I wouldn't get up in the morning.

Maya Angelou24:25

I really believe that

Maya Angelou24:28

We are meant to to be better.

Maya Angelou24:31

Final choice of record. Final choice is Ray Charles's Georgia.

Maya Angelou24:36

I have remo removed back to the south.

Maya Angelou24:40

And I do believe once a southerner, always a southerner.

Speaker 324:44

Georgia

Speaker 324:48

Georgia

Speaker 324:52

The whole day free

Speaker 324:57

Just an old sweet song.

Speaker 325:02

Keeps Georgia on my mind Georgia

Speaker 325:11

Accident Joe

Presenter25:14

Three Charles and Georgia.

Presenter25:16

My Angelou, you're now on this desert island. Now you have your eight records. You you have to assume

Presenter25:21

Tidal wave comes along. Take seven away. You're left with one. Which one would it be?

Maya Angelou25:27

I might just swim out with the tidal bank.

Maya Angelou25:31

Um

Maya Angelou25:32

I would keep Mahalia Jackson.

Presenter25:35

And what about the book? Assume you've got the works of Shakespeare, you've got the Bible on the island. Which book would you want?

Maya Angelou25:40

I would want the Negro Caravan.

Maya Angelou25:43

Compiled by Sterling Brown and Ulysses Lee.

Maya Angelou25:48

Published in nineteen forty.

Maya Angelou25:50

It has poetry from the eighteenth century black American poetry, nineteenth century and twentieth.

Maya Angelou25:57

There are excerpts from plays from the nineteenth century, antislavery propaganda, slave narratives, there are excerpts of WB Du Bois and Marcus Garvey and and some of the most beautiful poetry, really, Michael, nineteenth century black lady poetry so

Maya Angelou26:18

So I would have that.

Presenter26:20

What about the luxury object inanimate?

Maya Angelou26:22

Inanimate luxury I would have a painting by John Biggers.

Maya Angelou26:29

Called Kumasi Market.

Maya Angelou26:32

It's a huge painting and oil.

Maya Angelou26:35

With about, it looks like two thousand figures in there.

Maya Angelou26:39

And they are all the beautiful shades of black people. They are doing things. And I think I could spend a number of years trying to

Maya Angelou26:48

See what the people are doing.

Presenter26:51

My answer, thank you very much indeed.

Speaker 127:00

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Island Discs Archive. For more podcasts, please visit bbc.co.uk slash radio four.