This is the first volume of Maya Angelou’s autobiographical works. It begins with her childhood, when she and her brother are sent alone by train to live with their grandmother, and concludes with the birth of her son at the age of seventeen. The book explores themes such as identity, trauma, racism, and her growing connection to literature and learning. It offers a vivid and detailed portrayal of a young girl’s life, raised both in the rural South and later in a town setting, during the era surrounding World War II – particularly highlighting what it meant to be Black at that time. Beautifully written, it is a deeply engaging and rewarding read.
“It was awful to be Negro and have no control over my life. It was brutal to be young and already trained to sit quietly and listen to charges brought against my color with no chance of defense. We should all be dead. I thought I should like to see us all dead, one on top of the other. A pyramid of flesh with the whitefolks on the bottom, as the broad base, then the Indians with their silly tomahawks and teepees and wigwams and treaties, the Negroes with their mops and recipes and cotton sacks and spirituals sticking out of their mouths. The Dutch children should all stumble in their wooden shoes and break their necks. The French should choke to death on the Louisiana Purchase (1803) while silkworms ate all the Chinese with their stupid pigtails. As a species, we were an abomination. All of us.”