42 pages • 1 hour read
Maya AngelouA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Maya Angelou mentions a question she often confronts: How did she become a successful writer while being Black, female, and poor in 20th-century America? Angelou states she was formed by her grandmother and mother, whom she deeply loved. She notes their love “informed, educated, and liberated” her (1). She lived with her grandmother until adolescence. Angelou notes her grandmother never kissed her but would always praise her beauty and intelligence, introducing her as “[her] little professor” to visitors (1). Overall, she stresses the importance of love, a liberatory condition for humans, life, and the world. She states the novel’s purpose is to explore how love can heal and help people rise.
Angelou’s mother, Vivian Baxter, is born Black and poor in St. Louis, Missouri, in the early 20th century, a difficult time for African American people in the South. Her father is an immigrant from Trinidad with a “dark chocolate complexion” (3). Her mother is of Irish ancestry but was adopted and raised by a German family. Vivian is one-eighth African American but has light-colored skin. She is the first of six children.
The Baxter family enjoys singing gospel songs. As the children grow, their father wants to harden them, urging them to fight and defend themselves but never to commit crimes.
By Maya Angelou
A Brave And Startling Truth
Maya Angelou
All God's Children Need Traveling Shoes
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A Song Flung Up to Heaven
Maya Angelou
Caged Bird
Maya Angelou
Gather Together in My Name
Maya Angelou
I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings
Maya Angelou
Letter to My Daughter
Maya Angelou
Mother, A Cradle to Hold Me
Maya Angelou
On the Pulse of Morning
Maya Angelou
Phenomenal Woman
Maya Angelou
Still I Rise
Maya Angelou
The Heart of a Woman
Maya Angelou
The Lesson
Maya Angelou
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