Maya Angelou Beliefs

While children are growing up, they often dream of becoming high-paying doctors who live in a two-story house with a white picket fence. However, for Marguerite Johnson, the main character in Maya Angelou’s memoir about her childhood, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, her dreams were quite different. Marguerite, also known as Maya, dreamed of having beautiful long blonde hair and baby blue eyes like all the white girls in Stamps, Arkansas. The only way Maya was able to escape the racism around her was to imagine her life as a “sweet little white girl who is everybody’s dream of what is right in the world” (Angelou 4). With the divorce of her parents, Maya and her brother, Bailey, were sent to live with their grandmother in the town of Stamps,

Maya’s grandmother, who they called, Momma, took initiative to raise her grandchildren when their parents could not. Momma was an independent and strong woman who owned the town’s most popular African-American general store. Her religious beliefs played a significant role in how she raised her grandchildren, as she instilled the values of God and respect in Maya and Bailey. Momma served as a role model to Maya by setting a positive example for the way to raise and provide for a family. For example, one time Maya and her brother, Bailey, had been eating the candy around the general store, when Maya began to develop an excruciating toothache. Momma knew that her tooth needed to be treated, so she took Maya to the dentist. At that time in history, she would have had to take Maya to a black dentist who was twenty-five miles away. Since she did not want to travel that far, Momma decided to take Maya to the white dentist, who was much closer. During the Great Depression when everyone was losing money, Momma loaned money to many people, including the white dentist, Dr. Lincoln. Due to her act of kindness, she believed that he owed her a favor, and could do so by treating Maya. When they arrived, Dr. Lincoln said that he would not treat Maya because he only treated white people. He said, “I would rather stick my hand in a dog’s mouth than hers” (186). Momma would not

Flowers. After being raped by Mr. Freeman, Maya was stuck in a dark hole from which she could not escape. She did not speak to anyone, except her brother, and did not read or write, like she normally did. Mrs. Flowers, the aristocrat of black Stamps, stopped by the store one day to pick up some provisions. Mrs. Flowers had been getting complaints from school teachers that Maya was not speaking in class, so she confronted her about it. Mrs. Flowers gave Maya books to read in hopes that she would regain her voice and confidence. Maya and Mrs. Flowers formed a strong relationship, where Maya felt like she had an importance in life and felt love from the outside world. As Mrs. Flowers once told Maya,“Bear in mind, language is a man’s way of communicating with his fellow man and it is language alone which separates him from lower animals” (96). By sharing her wisdom, Mrs. Flowers was able to help Maya recognize the importance of using her voice and standing up for her beliefs. Although Mrs. Flowers did not mentor Maya throughout her whole life, the idea of her as a role model remained with Maya for