Forum; The Role of Black Culture in Society, Part 1

Thank you. From the Center for Telecommunication Services, the University of Texas at Austin, welcome to Forum. In this week's program, part one of a presentation by noted author and actress Maya Angelou, speaking on the role of Black culture and society, coming up on forum. Maya Angelou is a woman of many talents.

She's the author of five bestsellers, including an autobiographical work called, I Know Why the Cagebird sings. Her television accomplishments include a five-part mini-series called Three Way Choice, and the part of Gunta Kintai's grandmother in Roots. Ms. Angelou has been involved in civil rights efforts in the women's movement for several years. Recently, she spoke on the UT campus as the keynote speaker for Black History Month. Maya Angelou. 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. Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen.

I am delighted with your invitation to come this evening. That first poem was by wearing Kuni. Mr. Kuni was a black poet writing in the thirties. As a poem, it's the poem is called No Images. As a poem, it is perfect in structure, in lyricism. It is perfect. However, when one looks into the poem, one sees that Mr. Kuni used his genius to extract from a situation that just the marrow, the bone, the nub of that condition. What happens, indeed, to a woman or a man, when the problem which confronts and befuddles

that group or that person is a problem of self-worthlessness, again the poem? 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. While I am delighted to be here, I must confess to being also embarrassed. And I know that you must be embarrassed too. It is rather embarrassing in 1982 to be discussing why the black American is here and what the black American is about.

It is embarrassing for us all ladies and gentlemen in 1982 to be discussing even now whether there should be an equal rights amendment. It is rather cold. It is embarrassing to us all to be in 1982 discussing whether we should have an extension of the voting rights amendment. I mean, these things embarrass us, us Americans, us. It is embarrassing to us. I mean, the first blacks were brought to this country in 1619. Now, I do not mean to signify or cast aspersions, but that was one year before the Mayflower dot.

That the issues which confront us in this country, this place which James Baldwin calls these yet to be United States, are of such a low level for us compared to the dreams, compared to the initial wishes, the initial hopes, how be it that they have not been realized, the dreams are there. Now, having said all that, I am still delighted to be here and sense in for penny in for pound. I will speak to you this evening about love, love. By love I do not mean sentimentality or mush.

I mean that condition in the human community so powerful that it allows us to build bridges and to have the goal to stand upon those bridges and try to touch each other. I mean that kind of love. I shall use black American poetry in order to make my point. Now, I will use black American poetry because the black American poetry is so little known, so seldom used and so badly neglected. Mark Twain says, if you will have a person enslaved, the first thing you must do is convince yourself that the person is subhuman, thereby of course you justify your action. The second thing you must do is convince your allies that the person is subhuman, thereby of course you can go on a support and even respect.

But the third and the unkindest cut of all is to convince that person that he or she is subhuman. When a qualitative job is done, the initiator can stand away from the deed and a hundred years later ask, why don't you like yourselves more? Why are your neighborhoods in such disrepair? What is it women want? When a qualitative job is done, the victim perpetuates the crime. So that despite the fact that in the black community today we have wonderful phrases such as black as beautiful and nation building time, we still have phrases among young people which are murderous, homicidal, suicidal, genocidal, when still his phrases such as,

he's dark but he's nice looking. She's light but she doesn't have good hair, meaning closer to white and farthest from that African. What a pity, what a pity, how suicidal. Now the poetry, the contribution of the people who feel themselves and who are felt about as sub not quite really truly honestly, full human beings, you know, not sincerely, understandably their contributions are not really quite true. Poetry ladies and gentlemen is asked to be magical, mystical, lyrical and musical. There's a line, a shred from a 19th century folk song in which a man speaks of a woman

he loves who is of a beautiful color and abundant girth and he says, the woman I love is fat and chocolate to the bone and every time she shakes a skinny woman loses her home. The woman speaks of a man she loves again 19th century, this phrase was included in a 20th century blues. The woman says, he's blacker than midnight teeth like flags of truth, he's the sweetest thing in the whole stainless, they say the black of the berry, sweeter is the juice, there's

a line in a spiritual, the writer said, green trees have been thin, poles, semhas, stems of trembling. Now of course you could say there was a cold wind unexpectedly coming out of the north, unusually bringing our moderate temperatures down to almost freezing, someone who hadn't done the right thing was standing in a coax of trees and shaking as a consequence or you could say it poetically, green trees have been thin, poles and stems of trembling. Poetry, poetry idea, exquisite, about love, I'm obliged to talk about first romantic

erotic love, it's sad to say that when a number of non blacks write about blacks and romantic love, they would have us believe that white people make love and black people just have sex. Come on Maya, these smokers, however if one goes to the poetry, examine the poetry, examine the documents, there's a black lady Ms. Georgia Douglas Johnson, 19th century black lady poet, she wrote, I want to die while you love me, while yet you hold me fair, while laughter lies upon my lips and lights so in my hair, yes, I want to die while you love me, who would

care to live, to love had nothing more to ask and nothing more to give, no, I want to die while you love me and bear to that still bed your kisses, turbulent, unspent to warm me while I'm dead, Mr. James Weller Johnson, no relation 1916 wrote, seemed like to me the moon don't shine so bright, seemed like to me the sun then lost its light, seemed like to me that nothing's going right since you went away, seemed like to me that everything is wrong, seemed like to me the birds don't lost their song, seemed like to me the days are just twice as long since you went away, and it seemed like to me I just can't help but sigh, it seemed like to me my throat keeps getting dry, seemed like to me a tear staying

my eye since you went away, and Mr. Paul Lawrence Dunbar writing an 1895 wrote a poem which he entitled a Negro Love Song, it could have been written last week by a newly liberated woman, the refrain in this poem is jump back honey, jump back, seen my lady home last night, jump back honey, jump back, held a hand and squeezed it tight, jump back honey, jump back, heard her sigh that little sign I saw that light gleam in her eye, saw a smile go flippin' by, I said jump back honey, jump back, the mocking bird was singin' fine, jump back honey, jump back, and my heart was beating so that when I reached my lady's door, I just couldn't bear to go and say jump back honey, jump back, so I put my arms around her

waist, jump back honey, jump back, raise their lips and took a taste, jump back honey, jump back, I said love me honey, you love me true, you love me well as I love you then she answered of course I did but jump back, love poetry, if you look at Miss Frances Harper, Miss Harper was writing in the middle 1800s and she spoke of a kind of love, love of the race love, Miss Harper is to be found in your library as is Mr. Martin Delaney

and Mr. Frederick Douglass, ladies and gentlemen there's a statement, an African statement which is the trouble for the thief is not how to steal the chief's bugle but where to blow it. It would seem that the issues which face you are not how to be, how to enter into an institution of higher education which boasts of one of the largest student bodies in the country, how to remain in an institution of higher education might not be a problem, even how to leave this institution with some success and maybe even some glory might

not be difficult, the issue it seems to me is once in the institution what are you doing about it, that seems to me to be the issue, that this poetry, this literature which is a part of the survival apparatus of one entire people and a number of others is so little known and yet the documents are in your libraries, here, here in Austin, in 1982. If you choose I'm sure you will be able to leave this institution and say you are trained but unless you know something about this literature you cannot boast of being educated, the literature is

here, you can go to a librarian and say to her or him, I'd like to have a book which no one can find. The librarian will come into his or her own for the first time in maybe 20 years, do you realize that those people study diligently their sciences and then when they finish we tend to treat them as if they are mere custodians of dusty tongues. If you go to the librarian as you must do and say I want to know something about Spencer and Spencer, I want to know something about this poet, don't expect an immediate response, the librarian

will be in shock for about 20 minutes. But after that she or he will send to love book to get the book you need if necessary. The kind of love, I want to read a tiny piece of a poem of Miss Francis Harper writing about 1850. This is a few stanzas from a poem which she wrote to white women 130 years ago. You can sigh over the sad, eyed Armenian who weeps in her desolate home. You can mourn over the exile of Russia from kindred

and friends doomed to Rome. But heart from our south land are floating sobs of anguish, murmurs of pain and women heart stricken are weeping over their tortured and slain. Have ye not owe my favored sisters, just a plea or prayer or a tear for mothers who dwell beneath the shadows of agony, hatred and fear. Weep not owe my well sheltered sisters. Weep not for the Negro alone, but weep for your sons who must gather the crops which their fathers have sung. Now understandably Miss Harper was writing in the style of the times. But when you read her poetry some of it is free form, some of it is in rhyme,

ABABs and so. But the content of her poetry will help all of you black and white to understand how we came so late and lonely to this place. So you must read, I have a sister friend who is white. We have been friends over 30 years. We were 20 poor, mad, arrogant and broke together. She has a daughter, I have a son. Her daughter had I think the softest teeth in the Western hemisphere. Because once a month her daughter would have, they would discover cavity and my friend would come to me for money so we could get her daughter's teeth fixed. My son wore glasses and he was obsessive about losing his glasses. And I think he and her

daughter worked it out so that her daughter would get a cavity the next week he would lose his glasses. So I would have to go to her for money to get him glasses. We were sisters, sister friends early on. We shared money, keys to each other's houses, apartments. When either one of us found Mr. Wright, we bought cheap wine and set up all night long celebrating and when either of us lost Mr. Wright, we bought cheap wine and set up all night and cried. That's right. She is now the chairman of the Department of Anthropology at a New York University and we have kept our friendship, our sisterhood intact over these years. About

three years ago she telephoned me. She said, girl I told you you should have come to the West Indies to that conference. It was fantastic. The workshops were great, the seminars were great but the best of all was a keynote speech by Elaine Thomas and you know her. So I said I don't know Elaine Thomas. She said yes you do. We met her in Long Island at the end of the 60s and I said I don't know her. What does she look like? She said she's short, stout about our age. So I asked her she's black or white. She said she's black. I asked her what color is she. There was this long pause. Just went on forever and then she started she said well she's kind of but not really. I mean she's more well she's not as but more than. And I realized that if either of our lives depended upon it,

my 30 year friend could not describe me except to say that I was black. So there's a poem and this is in under the banner of race love. There is a poem by Mr. Langston Hughes in which he calls out some of the names that we call ourselves. I'm using this so that the black students will be reminded that for centuries we called ourselves bouquets of roses gardens of flowers because of the range in color. And I will say this for the white students and faculty so that you might memorize some of these phrases. And when next, when next you want to describe a friend of yours or someone in your family, you will use one of these

and if you have no black friends go out and make some immediate, you can. Have you dug the spill of sugar here? Cast your gems on this sepia three. Brown sugar last. Caramel treat. Honey gold baby sweet enough to eat. Peach skin girl. Coffee and cream. Chocolate darling out of a dream. Pomegranate lip. Volna tinted. Coco brown. Pomegranate pride in time. Rich cream colored. Plum tinted black. Harlem is not lacking beauty. Glow of the

quince to the blush of the rose. Prisman browns. Cinnamon toes. Blackberry cordial Virginia Day wine. All those sweet flavors color Harlem. Walnut or cocoa. Let me repeat. Caramel. Browns sugar. A chocolate treat. Molasses taffy. Coffee. Cream. Licorice. Clove. Cinnamon. A honey brown dream. Ginger. Wine gold. Prisman. Blackberry. All through the spectrum Harlem folks vary. So if you want to know beauty's rainbow sweet thrill, stroll with me down

luscious fine. Delicious sugar here. Maya Angelou author actress and songwriter. Next week the conclusion of Miss Angelou's presentation on the role of black culture and society. I'm Mary Sullivan and you've been listening to forum. Cousette copies of this program are available and may be purchased by writing forum the Center for Telecommunication Services the University of Texas at Austin 78712. That address again is forum the Center for Telecommunication Services the University of Texas at Austin 78712. Forum is produced at public station KUTFM and distributed by the Center for Telecommunication Services all at the University of Texas at Austin. This is the Longhorn Radio Network.