The Rainbows Around Maya Angelou

(photo: mayaangelou.com)

Paying money to hear someone talk about rainbows may not be one’s idea of a fun night out, but it really depends on who is giving the talk. On Sunday February 28^th, 2007 I did exactly that and had the privilege to hear one of America’s treasures, Maya Angelou, discuss how important rainbows are.

From hearing this, one might think she is crazy, but this is not the case. Angelou told the audience of how there may be clouds in one’s life, but there will always be rainbows escaping from it. Moreover, how a person affects another positively is a rainbow and the length of the rainbow depends on how many people someone has affected.

Rainbows were not the only subject discussed during the evening, but yet it was deep down at the core of talk she gave, no matter what she discussed. One of the most interesting subjects discussed was centered on Angelou’s rape at the age of 8 by her mother’s boyfriend. She told the captive audience that she told the secret to her brother, who told some of her family members. When things climaxed, the man was killed by Angelou’s uncles, but this caused other problems. Angelou believed that her words caused this man’s death, so she became practically mute for the next 5 years.

Angelou also discussed her own personal experience with being homeless, and a scene she saw while in London that shocked her to the point where she became confrontational. While walking down the street, Angelou spotted two individuals who were apparently homeless sitting in front of a store. She also saw a man walking out on the store, clearing his throat, and spitting on the two individuals. Disgusted, Angelou confronted the man, but he went back into the store without saying a word.

Another important event in her life was when the United Nations was developing in San Francisco. She stated that she saw all the different people going in and out of the building and was intrigued. Unfortunately at the time, she was 16, pregnant, and about to graduate from high school. She said that she wanted to be a part of the United Nations and wondered if it would ever happen. This dream came true with the UN invited Angelou to recite a poem for their 50^th anniversary. Angelou said that it was one of the happiest moments of her life.

Rainbows fit into these events because she would not be who she was then and who she is today without rainbows in her life. She praised her grandmother as well as her uncle, and told the audience how they took care of her and how her partially paralyzed uncle taught her multiplication tables. She extends her uncle’s rainbow when she meets a man from Little Rock, Arkansas who was employed by Angelou’s uncle. Supposedly, her uncle gave him the job to help out him and his blind mother. He also learned his multiplication from him. Angelou met another man from the Carolinas who told her a similar story about how he was born to a disabled mother and Angelou’s uncle helped him and his mother out and also taught him multiplication as well.

These men are not everyday people in our society. Angelou stated that the man from Arkansas is now the mayor of Little Rock, and the man from the Carolina is in the US congress. The rainbow that affected these two individuals started with a partially paralyzed black man from a small town in Arkansas. Despite all of this, his rainbow was able to reach out not just to Angelou, but also to a mayor of a major city in the US as well as a US senator. This is the precedent that Angelou laid out on the table and hoped that we would follow. Despite the honking and fowl language in the Evergreen State College’s parking lot after the speech, maybe it hit some of the audience members. Only time will tell.