With the Bird No Longer Caged, She Sings Even Louder in A Heavenly Chior .....

Today the great American poet and playwright Maya Angelo passed away quietly at 86 years of age. Throughout her life she struggled to define her identity and the voice that would one day characterize her unique brand of strength comingled with grace amidst deliberate racism and the subsequent fallout after having been raped at the tender age of eight years old at the hands of her mother’s boyfriend. Her first autobiography in a series of 7 titled “I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings” was a ‘coming of age’ story which illustrated how strength of character coupled with a love of literature enabled her to overcome unimaginable trauma and an environment teeming with atrocities. Through her mastery of language, she was able to use her own life experiences as metaphors for the suffering of her race and its efforts to resist oppression.

I suppose we all have an ‘identity crisis’ at some point during our lives wherein we’re called upon to decipher how it is we fit into this intricate puzzle known as humanity. We struggle to make our marks on society while resisting the tendency to get lost in the process, but no one can fully understand the effects of bigotry and racism until they have the misfortune to confront it head on.

Having been born white, there is no way I can walk a mile in any black woman’s shoes, but roughly twenty years ago while traveling with my former husband who was working on a jobsite in the town of Philadelphia, Mississippi, I got a terrifying glimpse of what it must feel like to feel helpless and afraid in the face of those whose vision was narrow and sights locked on the damning principles they’d been raised to think of as truth …. that whites were superior and blacks were nothing more than worthless animals. Perhaps the only thing that was worse in their eyes was white sympathizers who dared to want to change the same system that had been in place for decades.

Philadelphia, Mississippi had previously placed itself on the map back during the sixties when on June 21, 1964 three young civil rights workers named James Earl Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael “Mickey” Schwerner were discovered in a shallow grave outside of town after having been shot to death execution style. One of the men was black and the other two white. The characters and events leading up to their murders and the subsequent cover-up was the storyline for the once popular movie “Mississippi Burning”.

Unfortunately, I found Philadelphia hadn’t changed that much back in the mid-nineties when I stayed there in a boarding house with my husband. The town was small and situated around a central square, which is typical for small southern towns. I was writing my first book at that time, banging it out on the keys of an electric IBM typewriter one painful page at a time. During the days when Brian was working, when I grew tired and bored or hungry I’d venture out and walk around town. One day I decided to take a seat on a barstool at the only diner in town as far as I could see for a cheeseburger and a glass of ice tea. Naturally friendly, I inevitably struck up a conversation with the big, heavyset man behind the counter who seemed inordinately curious why a strange woman in her thirties was sitting in his café that day all alone.

I explained I had come with my husband who was working on a jobsite on the edge of town and that we were staying at the only available inn just around the corner. When his questions were satisfied, our conversation trailed off, and I was grateful to enjoy some peace and quiet. As I waited on my lunch, I began taking in my surroundings, which included reading the multitude of signs nailed up on the facing wall when I was horrified by what I saw ….. there must have been thirty or more plaques boasting derisive racial slurs. I looked back toward the door I’d come through from off the street to see another sign proclaiming, “Whites Only” and then behind me toward another adjoining room that stepped down a couple of feet and read another sign labled ‘coloreds’. My heart rate sped up to the point I could hear it beating like a snare drum inside my ears. I wanted to rush out leaving my lunch behind when the same man who had questioned me earlier decided to ask one more, “What do you think of them signs?”

I was all but speechless as I struggled to get out a few words, “They’re something.” I immediately sensed my personal politics and viewpoints were being placed on trial right before me, and the survivalist existing inside of me knew this was neither the time nor place to pick a fight. I went on to state that I had to get back to my work at the boarding house and, “Could I please get my sandwich to go?” With a sneer he grunted an affirmative sound, and I sat motionless, staring at the floor until I could leave.

Back at the boarding house I hurried inside where I could seek safety outside of anyone else’s view. On the way I passed one of the owners – what I thought had been a kind, elderly gentleman – who asked how the blueberry pie was his wife had baked and sent to our room earlier that morning. I nodded ‘good’ and hastily thanked him once again before disappearing behind the door to my room. Later that same afternoon I heard him beat back an old black woman when she tried to exit her room. She was apparently a permanent tenant there upon the agreement that she remain out of sight. While he slapped her I could hear him yelling, “You’re not supposed to leave your room!” I pushed a chest in front of my door and cried as I peered out the side of a drape toward the street. I was alone. I didn’t even have a car, and I was afraid.

Later when my husband came in from work I recanted the events of my afternoon and how frightened I was. I told him I wanted to leave right then, but he refused. We’d already paid for the week and there were still two days remaining. He decided I had over-dramatized the day’s events and suggested I remain in the room for the balance of the week, then asked why there was a blueberry pie in the garbage. Not wishing to argue any further, I told him there were ants.

When I turned on the news the next morning, there was a reported ‘third’ black inmate who had hung himself at a prison in Meridian not too far from where we were staying. Exaggerated? I don’t think so. The Civil Rights Movement was still burning holes in that small community in Mississippi. So although I don’t know what it’s like to be black and to be oppressed for the color of my skin, I do know what it’s like to feel helpless and afraid and for those fears to go invalidated even when you’ve done nothing wrong, which makes the stories of those who have suffered so much greater than I but still managed to rise to extraordinary heights that much more impressive.

Over the next few days there will be countless memorials and tributes to the greatness that was Maya Angelo and my words will pale in comparison; however, I am proud to say I lived in a time when her work for civil rights along with the many who preceded her – both great and small – resonates as a living tribute for equality that will last an eternity.

Though Ms. Angelo was a poet of great standing I choose to close this tribute with the words of Paul Lawrence Dunbar, an African American poet whose 3rd stanza inspired her first book:

I know why the caged bird sings, ah me,

When his wing is bruised and his bosom sore,

When he beats his bars and would be free;
It is not a carol of joy or glee,

But a prayer that he sends from his heart’s deep core,

But a plea, that upward to heaven he flings –

I know why the caged bird sings.

The end of last week, Ms. Angelo tweeted her final tweet on Twitter, one of a rather prophetic nature, “Listen to yourself and in that quietude you might hear the voice of God.” Now that’s poetry, and I’d like to barrow from another living poet, or rather lyricist, Sarah Mclachlan, “In the arms of the angels, may you find some comfort there.” Good night, Ms. Angelo.