Forum; The Role of Black Culture in Society, Part 2

You From the Center for Telecommunication Services, the University of Texas at Austin, welcome to Forum. In this week's program, the conclusion of a presentation by Maya Angelou, poet, actress, an author of five bestsellers, including I Know Why The Cage Bird Sings, coming up on Forum.

Maya Angelou. We had traveled through Europe and arrived in Morocco, the company sent the sets onto Spain, and among some 63 people, the singers, there were 140 degrees in music. There were so few places for black singers of European classical music to work in, and I pointed out particularly, be careful about saying classical music, because if you mean European classical music, that's one thing. But if you mean American classical music, you must be talking about the blues, spirituals,

gospel songs, and jazz, that is American classical. So there were so few places that the company could afford to get a person who had one degree from Curtis, and another from Juilliard, just to be in the chorus. Well, the conductor said to the opera singers that they were obliged to perform in concert. Opera singers, whether they are black, white, Asian, Hispanic, Native American, or alley youth, or one people, like New York taxi drivers, one track, they were prepared to sing in concert, marvelously prepared. I think they had all their portfolios microfilm and put on the back of their ear rings or watches for something. So I said to the conductor, sorry, that is not my discipline, I'm not a singer, I have

no arias, he, this man was Russian and you should, I'd like to make you see him. He was tall, large, with miles of Russian hair, which went all over the plate. And flashing eyes, and an artistic temperament, which he warmed up every morning in a summer bar, I think, he turned to me with his great big arms and said, Bato, don't you know it's spiritual? And I thought, is Gritz Grocery's me, me, I grew up in stamps, Arkansas, which is as large almost as this stage. And my grandmother was mother of the church, mama took me to church on Sunday, and I don't

mean we left, I mean we went to church on so old. Monday night was missionary meeting, Tuesday night was bus aboard meeting, Wednesday night was prayer meeting, Thursday night was visit the sick, Friday night was choir, we didn't go to church on Saturday though. But we used Saturday to prepare to go to church on Sunday, and at all these gatherings we sang. So I knew every lonely to him, every doctor watched, gospel, spiritual, shreds of pieces. So I told the conductor, yes, I knew spirituals. So the other singers went out onto the stage and delivered themselves beautifully of the choir, lot on him all day beautifully, oh, and they're dee wonderfully. And they were very well received, and then I was called upon.

And I went out onto this stage, and there was 120 piece orchestra in the pit. But how could they help me with the violin, cheerly, and I should lay out, it's okay, I just do the best I can. So I thought of a song, my grandmother sang, every Sunday of my life. Mama would go into the church as mother of the church, sit down in the mother of the church pew, look straight ahead. The minister was up there, mama never looked. She just looked straight ahead. And after 15 minutes, the minister of every Sunday, the minister would say after he'd opened the service, he would turn and say, and now we'll be led in a hymn by Sister Henderson, my grandmother, me, every Sunday. And nobody, when you're young, no one can embarrass you as much as your parents or relatives

or, oh, I used to sit in the children's pew and I just think mama get up and sing. They know who she's going to sing, they even know what you're going to sing, mama just get up and sing. And the kids would be nudging each other. Mama would take her time, she'd put her pocketbook down beside her. She'd take her handkerchief and press it on her lap. It seemed that took 15 minutes, folded, press it again, put it on, and then she'd stand. And in Morocco alone, I sang the song, my grandmother sang it, which was, I am a Pope from a sorrow, I'm lost in this wide world alone. I've started to make heaven my home, my mother, she's found her sweet glory.

And my father's still living in sin, and my brothers and sisters won't own me, because I am trying to get in some time, I'm tossed in, I'm driven long, sometimes I don't know where to roam, but I've heard all the city call Him.

And I've started to make it my home. I want you to know when I've finished singing, 4,500 Arabs jumped up, hit the floor and started to scream. Allolatheema allah, allolatheema alla, allolatheema alla, allolatheema allah, allolatheema allah Until you hung steal away and headed sung back to you in French, or Spanish, or Ahanta, or Serbo Croat, or Arabic, you haven't come to grips with a literature.

A literature so real that it will not endows the distance of continents, centuries, oceans, races, racism, slavery. It will not endows any of those distances. It says, I speak through the black experience. That's what I know. I'm talking about the human condition. What it is like to be a human being. What makes us weep? What makes us laugh? What does us down? And how we overcome? I stood on that stage, my knees were knocking because I was very young, you see? Not just chronologically, but I didn't know what my heritage was. I didn't know how rich I was.

I looked stage right, and those Bel Conto singers were leering out. At me like that, I looked stage left. Those singers with their years of training, respite in Rosinian, Bach and Black and Haydn and Mozart and lovely little percelled pieces, art pieces. And so, there they were, leering at me. Is it how dare you? And I said, sorry. Sorry that I have the glory. Sorry. Sorry. Hey, hey, sorry. I walked out of the theater out of the stadium and I had not, it was my first time in North Africa. I walked alone trying to figure exactly what had happened.

And I did realize that when the large portions of this country had been divvied up by the powerful, this portion which Thomas Wolf calls this everlasting earth, had been divvied up and shared about by the powerful. For the most part, my people didn't even own the awkward new names they had been given. Not to mention the chains and the shackles. When the declaration of independence had been signed, for the most part, my people had been illiterate. But look what they gave me. A literature, a heritage, so rich that everybody claims it.

Isn't that something? Isn't that something? Stop and think about it. Think about it. The people who wrote the poetry, James Wellen Johnson calls them black and unknown bars. How came your lips to touch the sacred fire? How in your darkness did you come to know the power and beauty of the Minstrel's liar? Heart of what heart poured out such melody as steal away to Jesus? When it strains, his spirit must have mightedly and nightly floated free. Though still about his hands, he felt his chains. Who heard great Jordan wrong?

Who star would I saw a chariot swing low? And who was he that breathed that comforting, melodic sigh, nobody knows? Not that great German master in his dreams of harmonics that thundered amongst the stars at the creation. Ever heard a theme nobler than go down, Moses? Mark its bars, how like a mighty trumpet call they stir the blood? Such are the notes that men have sung going to the loris deeds, such tongues there were that helped make history when time was young. There is a great wide wonder in it all that from degraded rest and servile toil, the fiery spirit of the seer should call these people of the sun and soil.

O black slave singers gone, forgot unfained you, you alone. Of all the long, long line of those who have sung untought, unknown, unnamed, have stretched out upward, seeking the divine. For a long time, for centuries in fact in this country, our people were obliged to laugh when they weren't tickled and to scratch when they didn't itch. And those gestures have come down to us as Uncle Tomming. Ladies and gentlemen, I suggest to you that people live in direct relation to the heroes and the she-ros they have. Always and in always, every human grouping, one person, a couple, a family, people in a neighborhood, people in a city, a race.

I don't think we often enough stop to wonder how that black man's throat must have been closing on him in that awful hurt when he said, yes, the boss, you right, I show stupid. So he can make enough money so he could go home and feed somebody. That black woman who said, no, ma'am, it's Ann, you didn't hurt me when you slapped me, no, ma'am, I intend to heart her. So she can make enough money so she could go home and feed someone. In direct relation to the heroes and she-ros we have, we stay alive. And I suggest to you that those people were successful in the employment of those humiliating ploys. For many of you wouldn't be here tonight to listen to me, who wouldn't be here to talk to you? That's it. That's it. That's love. That's an indication, ladies and gentlemen, of an incredible love.

How be it brooding? It is an abiding love. A human being is willing to allow another human being to see her on him at his most debased. In order to keep yet another human being alive, that is a great abiding love. Well, I write poems often for the children, about the children, small folks, quite often. I have a poem called Harlem Hopscotch. Now, Hopscotch anywhere it's jumped is dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun. I mean it's jumped in Sweden, it's called Hova Hoga. It's jumped dun dun dun dun dun. It's jumped in Japan, dun dun dun dun dun. West Africa, dun dun dun dun dun dun. However, in Harlem, Harlem, New York, Harlem, San Francisco, Harlem, Tulsa, Harlem, Dallas, and Harlem, Austin.

It is their other rhythms. It becomes polly with me, so it becomes, I mean dun dun dun dun dun honey, it's still the basic rhythm, dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun di dun dun dun. Then what the children think in Harlem, all the Harlem, the other thoughts, then those thoughts, thought by the childhood, jumps its own park avenue, figuratively and literally, so I wrote Harlem Hopscotch. One foot down in hop, it's hot. Good things for the ones that's got another jump, not to the left.

Everybody for himself. In the air, not both feet down, sense your black, don't stick around. Food is gone, rent is due, cuss and cry, and then jump too. Everybody is out of work, whole for three, and then twist and jerk. Across the line, they counter out, but that's what huffins all about. Both feet down, the game is done. They think you're lost. I believe you won. I would remind you, ladies and gentlemen, of a statement, it is homo-soon. Humani, Nihil, Amei, Aleyenum, Puto. I am a human being. Nothing human can be alien to me. The statement was made by Terrence in 154 BC.

He was an African, sold slay, sold to a Roman senator. The senator freed him. He became the most popular playwright in Rome. Six of his plays and that statement have come down to this century. I am a human being. Nothing human can be alien to me. That this inclusive concept would come from a man not born white, not born free, not a citizen, is quite phenomenal. And it is a concept which, if you once internalize, will never leave you. It means, of course, that from the moment of its internalization

you can never again look at any human being and say, I could never do that. What you can say is, I pray never to do that. I hope I will use my energies constructively as opposed to destructively. But if a human being did it, I have within me all the components to do that. However, on the other hand, if someone dreams a great dream, writes, composes, paints, scopes, designs a masterpiece, if for human being dares to love someone and has the goal to accept love and return, then you can do it. It is for you to do. All the literature stand a value

whether it is check-off or Turkeneff, whether it is Rob Griez, or Lippo, whether it is García Lorca, or Carlos Fuentes, whether it is Paul Ernst Dunbar, County Cullen, no matter who created the work, it is for us all to encourage us to stand stronger, to encourage us to develop courage because courage is the most important of all the virtues. For without courage, we cannot practice any other virtue with consistency. We can't be consistently kind, consistently true, fair-minded, uplifting, inspiring, honest, any of those things without courage. I wish I had said that first,

unfortunately, Plato got it, but that's all right. It is still true these thousands of years later, and the literature is for us all. Avail yourselves of the literature. Please do. The works are here. You should know David Levering Lewis's new book, called When Harlem Was In Vogue, because it will help you to understand how we came here. You and us. Us and all. We and us. You, us. All the third person singular. It will help. And we will understand more and more how much more similar we are than this similar. And then we stand the chance, ladies and gentlemen, of making friends. Only equals make friends. Otherwise, any relationship is out of balance. There is that in the human spirit,

which will not be done down even by death. Every human being who has lived long enough to learn to count to two has slept with pain, fear, disappointment, loneliness, loss, terror, grief, discomfort, insecurity, and yet morning has come. And we have all awakened and arisen and made whatever oblutions our society dictates

or we are able to do. Dressed and gone to another human being and said, good morning. Hi. How are you? Fine, thanks in you. Therein. Therein. Lies are claimed in ability. Therein, in that tiny microscopic piece, we rise. We rise over atrocities. You may write me down in history with your bitter twisted lies. You may charred me in the very dirt, but still like dust. I rise. Does my sassiness upset you? Why are you beset with gloom just because I walk like I've got oil wells pumping in my living room? Just like moons and like sons,

with the certainty of times, just like hope springing high. Still like rise. Did you want to see me broken? Bowed head and lowered eyes, shoulders falling down like tear drops weakened by my soulful cries. Does my sassiness upset you? Don't take it so hard just because I laugh. I have diamonds in my own backyard. You can shoot me with your words. You can cut me with your lies. You can kill me with your hatefulness. But just like life, I rise. Does my sassiness offend you? Or does it come as a surprise that I dance? As if I have diamonds at the meeting of my thighs. Out of the huts of history shame I rise.

Up from a path that's rooted in pain I rise. I'm a black ocean leaping and wide, welling and swelling I bear in the tide, leaving behind nights of terror and fear I rise. Into a day break that's wondrously clear I rise. Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave. But I am the hope and the dream of the slave and so I will rock. Maya Angelou, poet, author and actor speaking on the role of Black Culture and Society. Miss Angelou's presentation was sponsored by the Texas Union Ideas and Interactions Committee in celebration of Black History Month. I'm Mary Sullivan and you've been listening to Forum. Cassette 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.