In “Graduation”, Maya Angelou talks about her graduation experience in her class of 1940. Her essay is mostly based on how African Americans were treated back then. Angelou states that African American schools were ruled under white power. She said that it didn’t matter whether they were smart or not the boys were sent to work and women were to take care of the home duties. Angelou states that during her graduation ceremony white man came to her school to tell them how good the white schools were doing and what new material they were getting and to congratulate the few black athletes that were going to play football. That upset Maya because her race was being identified on how they were physically good at not on how great their intelligence