E-mail a friendMaya Angelou
original airdate May 20, 2004
Maya Angelou is celebrated as a poet and writer and has a notable career as an educator, producer, director, actress and civil rights activist. She was among the first African American women to hit the bestsellers lists. In '93, she became only the second poet in U.S. history to write and recite original work at a presidential inauguration. Angelou has traveled from poverty in segregated Arkansas to journalism in Africa to being hailed as a renaissance woman and one of the great voices of contemporary literature.
Watch Maya Angelou's interview.
Maya Angelou
Tavis: You know, I'm giggling already, 'cause every time I see you, I'm just so happy to see you all the time.
Maya: I remember meeting you the first time. You were so young and so full of promise, and everyone knew you were going to do some wonderful things. And nobody yet knows what you're going to do.
Tavis: Ha ha ha ha!
Maya: I mean, this is just a step.
Tavis: Just a step. Well, it started out, as you well know, with having the chance to go--For those who know my story, they know that I had a chance to go to Africa for the first time many years ago, when I was much younger, and you let me follow you around and carry your bags for 2 weeks in Ghana. And I remember it like it was yesterday, especially that wonderful, moving--You remember the talk you gave at Du Bois' tomb?
Maya: That's right. The W.E.B. Du Bois speech. It was electric.
Tavis: You were brilliant that day.
Maya: Thank you.
Tavis: Absolutely brilliant. I'm glad that you're here, because we get a chance just to talk for a whole half an hour, whatever I want to talk about.
Maya: All right.
Tavis: Nothing to pitch, nothing to sell, just a conversation.
Maya: As they say in Harlem, bring it.
Tavis: Bring it--All right, bring it then. Well, I'm gonna bring it then. Let me start with Harlem, since you mentioned that. You own a place in Harlem? You moved back down south, and I want to talk about that in a second, but you own a place in Harlem.
Maya: I sure do.
Tavis: When did you buy this place, and do you love living there? Do you love being back there again?
Maya: Oh, I love it. And Harlem is claiming itself. It's claiming its history. The people had it snatched away from them, you know. Now, mind you, it wasn't all somebody's else's fault. Some of it was the Harlemites' fault. But when it came to them what had happened, they began the systematic improvement of claiming their history. So people--In my block, down the street, uh, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar has a place, and further down the street, Skip Gates--Henry Louis "Skip" Gates--has a place. And around, a couple of blocks away, Roberta Flack has a place. The Ashford-Simpsons have a place. Whoopi Goldberg is supposedly buying a place.
Tavis: And Marcia Gay Harden, the Academy Award-winning actress, was on this show around Academy Award time, and she said she loved living in Harlem and being one of your neighbors.
Maya: That's great. That's great. And everybody knows where--I mean, the taxi drivers, the people who sell newspapers, all know where these luminaries live. So a person was bringing--A taxi driver was bringing someone to my house, and he slowed down, the driver, and said, "Where will I find Mount Morris Park?" And the fellow on the street said, "You're looking for Dr. Maya Angelou? She lives down the street. Turn left."
Tavis: Yes. It's so wonderful. They know you and love you in Harlem.
Maya: Yes, they do.
Tavis: You, as I mentioned a moment ago, some years ago, went back and built you a nice big house down south. Talk to me about the move that you made, not just your movie, but in a larger context, there are a lot of African-Americans as they get--I don't want to say older. As they get more chronologically gifted--
Maya: Ha ha ha ha!
Tavis: How about that?
Maya: My doctor said, "Doctor, you know you are just upper--upper-class middle-age--upper-middle-age."
Tavis: Upper-middle-age.
Maya: Upper-middle-age.
Tavis: As they become more upper-middle-age, they move back down south. In your case, why did you do it? Why do you think so many black folk are doing that as they get older?
Maya: It's so beautiful. I had grown up in San Francisco and around California. I've lived everywhere in California, except Yreka, way up there.
Tavis: Ha ha ha ha!
Maya: But, um, I thought if I moved south, I would miss the natural beauty which is California. But the South is so beautiful. That's why people fought so hard to take it, to keep it, and to keep a way of life that they know was untenable, because it is so beautiful. And it's human-friendly, so that the winters--There are winters and summers and falls and springs, but they are not so edgy. They're not so severe that if you don't have lots of money and can't pay an extortious heat bill--heating bill, you can't live there, you see? So it is--And then there's the music. The music of the South is the classic American music. That is the blues, the spirituals, the gospel, jazz, rock 'n' roll, country-western--that is all Southern. So the music, um, and the people, and I love the way Southern people talk. You know, I just love it.
Tavis: Ha ha ha ha! You are too much. You used the phrase a moment ago, and you do this to me all the time--I just start talking, and you say stuff that makes me want to follow up, so let me follow up. You used the phrase a moment ago that I found fascinating, when you said the South is human-friendly. One could argue that the world we live in these days, for a lot of reasons, is a lot less human-friendly. One, do you agree? And if you do, what ought we do about that?
Maya: Yes, I certainly agree. I must say, however, that it is human-unfriendly because of human beings. It is not the natural nature of nature which has made it unfriendly, but because we have--Somehow we've dropped the ball somewhere. I don't mean Americans. I mean Americans and everyone else. We seem to have decided that we can live in mean little tunnels separated from everyone else and we can be safe and full and glorious and live our lives and our children can be secure and developing. It's not true. This planet, if one made a map 5 miles long and 5 miles wide of the universe as human beings have charted it, Earth would be smaller than a pinhead on it. The reptiles lived on this little blob of spit and sand 200 million years. We just came here yesterday. We just grew these opposing thumbs. We are new, and somehow--I mean, we've done well, but not well enough. Somehow we really think that, "I'm separate from you." "He's different from me." "I don't like them." "My people never liked them." "They are gay." "They are black." "They are white." "They are fat." "They are thin." That is so stupid. It is so blitheringly stupid, and it--Unfortunately, it is an epidemic of ignorance which has assailed us all over the world.
Tavis: Well, I'm glad you said that. Let's talk about then America for a moment if we might in the context of the world, the global world, they tell us that we now live in. There are folk around the world, and you lived in places around the world, back to my earlier comment about having gone to Ghana with you. I didn't know until we met in Ghana and hung out that you had lived in Ghana at an earlier point many years prior to. And the people there knew you, and you knew the places, and the people, they loved you, and that's another story. But anyway, let's talk about America in the context of the world that we live in. There are a lot of folk that for a lot of reasons, some would argue legitimate, that don't like us. When you say it wasn't just America that dropped the ball, but there are a lot of folk, Dr. Angelou, who don't like us these days. Are they justified in not liking us?
Maya: Well, we've done some ugly things, and we had done some ugly things before, but we had done some good things, too. But the good things usually sort of balanced out the evil things. However, now because of this pullback and "me against the world, and you're not in it, and I don't like you because of your language or the way you call God or your color or something, because of that, then I don't have to make any effort to know you." At one time, Tavis Smiley, Americans were not looked at with hate in various places in the world, and I've lived everywhere except Asia, and I speak a number of languages, as you know.
Tavis: I've heard you speak them.
Maya: Yes. So I've heard it not as hearsay. I was living in the place, and I knew how the people spoke of Americans behind their backs. At one time, people were proud to know an American. Really.
Tavis: I'm scared to tell folk I am American when I travel now. I try to come up with an accent that's un-American. "No, I ain't from America."
Maya: I tell you, at one time, you could sit on the Rue De La Paix in Paris or at the Habima Theater in Tel Aviv or in the Medina in Morocco, and you could see a person come in--black, white, it didn't matter--you said, "That's an American." Because there's a readiness to smile and to talk to people. "Yes. Uh-huh. Yeah, I'm from Terre Haute, Indiana. Yeah. How you doing? And you don't speak English?"
Tavis: Ha ha ha!
Maya: But that charm, we've worn it off because of our reluctance to be and act as intelligently as we know we should. And we have allowed ourselves to be molded into some of the dangerous shapes of some leaders who themselves will live in great luxury and can afford to protect themselves somewhat. But we are losing some birthright which we really dangerously will live without and maybe die without.
Tavis: Let me ask you--Again these wonderful phrases, you just spit 'em out. You can't even help yourself. You just spit 'em out. When you say we have not behaved as intelligently as we might, let me ask you on the domestic front whether 50 years, shifting gears here, 50 years after 'Brown v. Board of Education,' have we behaved as intelligently as we should have or could have or might have? What is the unfinished agenda of 'Brown v. Board' 50 years later?
Maya: Well, the unfinished is governmental, community, and individual responsibilities. The government has--the elected officials, let me say--have acted in some cases to the letter of the law, but not beyond that. So if a rule is made de jure by law, but by de facto, by action, there's no give in it, then you walk just to the edge. You give nothing to it. So that going according to law has little grace. There's very little movement then, you see? Very little place for anyone to show that they know well or know better. When the black young men and women or Latino young men and women or poor white young men and women are shuffled off, shunted if you will, off to the side of some mountain in Appalachia in West Virginia--I'm thinking of poor whites--and they are lucky to get to the eighth grade. Or the Latinos who are within the barrios, and they are lucky to get to the eighth or ninth or tenth grades, or the black--Um, there's something we're not doing, that our elected officials, the men and women we vote in, they ought to be more present in our lives. They run our lives, then they should be more present and caring in our lives. That's what they--That's really what democracy's supposed to be.
Bill Moyers: The high point came I think--I did a wonderful show with Maya Angelou. I took her home to Stamps, Arkansas, which was where she grew up. She'd not been back there. We took our cameras. We did a wonderful documentary about her. And she and I--She grew up in the South. I grew up in the South. We grew up just about 75 miles from each other--she in Arkansas and I in east Texas. And so, we were walking down this road up to the--from where the blacks used to live in that town up to the railroad track on the other side where the whites lived, and there was a grocery store over there where Maya as a little girl used to go. So we're coming up to the tracks to go over there. She's gonna take me and show me exactly where as a little girl she used to go to buy bread and groceries. And as we get close to the track, you can't see this--I couldn't feel it, but the camera catches it. She slows down. She slows down. She slows down. We get to that track. The grocery store is right across there. She takes my arm, she turns me around, and she says, "I'll tell you what, Bill. Let's us both stay on this side of the tracks. We'll be a lot safer." Now, the meaning of that was that the memories of that childhood experience, excruciating experiences she had, were still playing on a woman in her late forties or early fifties. And it reminded me of how the past always has a grip on us even when we think we've pried its fingers loose.
Maya: Absolutely. Absolutely. Bill Moyers came up with the idea in the early seventies that he, from Marshall, Texas, and Willie Morris, from Yazoo, Mississippi, and I, from Stamps, Arkansas, should return to our towns. So they wanted me and Bill to go down to Yazoo to be with Willie, and I and Willie would go to Marshall, Texas, and then the 2 of them would come to Stamps. I said, "Never."
Tavis: Ha ha ha!
Maya: My grandmother raised me never be on a dark country road with white men. Just you will not. No, ma'am. So, I told Willie and Bill that. We laugh, but before that--I don't know if Bill remembers this. We were driving from Stamps, Arkansas, to McKinney, Arkansas, 5 miles, and Bill had this big truck full of people and materials and, you know, cameras. And he and I were riding with some more people from New York, and all of a sudden, I saw this dirt road and the trees that arched over it. And I was 40-something years old, and I was whatever Maya Angelou is supposed to be or people think I am. And I said, "Bill, stop the car. Stop the car." So they stopped the car. I said, "Get out. I can't do it. I cannot." Old fears are like dragons under the bedspread, tigers in the closet, lions waiting in the hall. They do not die with age and a wider understanding of the world and all that. They do not. We keep them at bay sometimes with alcohol or drugs, you see? We keep them at bay with lots of makeup and face cosmetic improvements, some face-lifts. And so, we can keep them at bay with diets, but they are there. So all cruelty--And I'm glad you mentioned that. All cruelty that we serve upon each other and on ourselves never really go away except by kindness. So that I'm amazed when people actually plant onions and then go out later and hope to harvest tomatoes. Wait a minute. If you're not even religious, nature has shown us for millions of years if you get anything back, it will be millions of what you planted. So that's why back to your question, what do we--what has happened in the 50 years. If we don't plant the right things, we will reap the wrong things. It goes without saying. And you don't have to be, you know, a brilliant biochemist, and you don't have to be with the I.Q.--you don't have to have an I.Q. Of 150. Just common sense tells you to be kind, ninny. Fool, be kind.
Tavis: But you know, you said to me one time now that--that being kind is what we ought to be, but you said to me, though, one time, that as you've gotten older, you've come to believe--you said to me, "Tavis, that courage..."
Maya: Yes.
Tavis: "Is the greatest of all the virtues."
Maya: That's true.
Tavis: 'Cause if you don't have courage, you can't practice any of the other virtues.
Maya: That's true.
Tavis: But it takes courage to be kind.
Maya: Yes, it takes courage, but then--you see, you can develop courage. Courage. I don't think anybody's born with courage. I think you may be born with a flair to braggadocio.
Tavis: Yeah. Ha ha ha.
Maya: That's not courage. Courage. You develop courage by doing small things. Like just as if you wouldn't want to pick up a hundred-pound weight without preparing yourself. So you start with 5 pounds, 10, 20, et cetera. Well, with courage, you start by doing small things courageously, such as not sitting in a room when racial pejoratives are bandied about. I won't sit in a room with black people when the word that belittles whites is used. I will not. Or that belittles Japanese or Jews or Muslims or Latinos. I will not. I know it's poison. I will not sit in a room with black people when words--the "N" word is used. I know it was meant to belittle a person, so I will not sit there and have that poison put on me. Now, a black person can say, "Oh, you know, I can use this word because I'm black." Well, Tavis Smiley, when the word was developed, it was developed as poison. If poison is in a vial with "P-O-I-S-O-N" on it and a skull and bones, it's poison. You can take that same content and pour it into Bavarian crystal--
Tavis: And it's still poison. Hmm.
Maya: You see?
Tavis: Yeah.
Maya: So you just say, "I will not do this." This will take some courage. So you may have to say something like--You know, instead of saying, "Well, uh, I don't sit here because, you know, you people are using this word." No. You may have to say, "My goodness. It's already 8:30. I gotta be in Bangkok."
Tavis: Ha ha ha ha! I've only got a couple minutes left with you.
Maya: Really?
Tavis: The time goes so fast. I've had the pleasure, um, of spending time with you down through my formative years, and--and I get asked about you and my relationship with you all the time and teased about it by my friends on the Tom Joyner morning show, as you well know.
Maya: Yes.
Tavis: But I wonder whether or not you have yet--'Cause I've asked you this before, and you didn't have a good answer. The one thing you couldn't answer well. I wonder whether or not you yet have come to realize the absolute impact that you have on people every time they come into your presence, every time they get a chance to see you conversing on television. I don't know that you still yet have figured out the impact that you really have on people.
Maya: No. I don't think that's for me to figure out. That's not my work. My work is to be honest. My work is to try to think clearly, then have the courage to make sure that what I say is the truth. I don't have to tell everything I know.
Tavis: Mm-hmm.
Maya: Just make sure that what I say is what I truly believe and that I have worked at it, I have mulled over it, I have meditated, I have prayed over it. Before I came here today, I prayed mightily, not just for the audience or for you, but for the crew, just in case I have something to say that might help somebody, might clarify, you know? To be a rainbow in the clouds.
Tavis: Your prayers, as usual, I suspect, have been answered. Thank you. You know I love you dearly.
Maya: I love you dearly, and I'm proud of you, too.
Tavis: Thank you so much.
Maya: Thank you so much.
Tavis: Oh, man. That's our show for tonight. As always, you can catch me on the radio on NPR, National Public Radio. I will see you back here next time on PBS. I hope this conversation has enlightened and encouraged and empowered you just--just a little bit of what it's done for me. Good night from L.A. Thanks for watching. As always, keep the faith.
Back to May 20, 2004