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following is an encore presentation of people are talking from this past year Live from San Francisco, it's channel five people are talking with Ann Fraser and Ross McGowan, thank you very much. What a nice warm welcome, good morning welcome to

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people are talking. Thank God it's friday. It is friday. I something exciting happened on this program yesterday and I got to tell you about it. It came up where I told the story of the crush I had on MS Roe, my third grade teacher, I don't

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know if anybody heard that. I went to Lake Merced School. Um this, we're talking 1951, I was in the I know you're surprised you thought I was in the third grade, 1951. Yes, Lake Merced School here in san Francisco Misr Oh wow. Yeah. Do you know

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what happened after the show yesterday? Guess who called, who called? No her sister called and said she was blown away by the fact that I had mentioned that MS role. She said well Janice's in europe, I said who's Janice? She said that's MS roe. I said

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we were not on a first name basis, but she's in europe should be home in a few days and she's gonna bring her down to the show and it's gonna be a lot of fun. She said what's funny about this is I remember when Janice was

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at Lake Merced school and she told about these two young boys who always caused trouble in class and one of them was little ross, she said MS Rowe liked me but I always talked too much and she said a little ride. She never put two and

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two together that ross Mcgowan on tv was the little roster system. You talk too much surprising. I can't imagine not when you're around. Well uh so often those of us in television are accused of not providing compelling television programs. Well, our guest this morning is the

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definition of compelling. She will make you laugh. She might make you cry. She definitely will make you think she is one of life's cheerleaders and what's wonderful. All her wisdom and her experience is based on reality ladies and gentlemen Maya angelou. Mm hmm. Yes. Mhm.

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Mhm. Mhm Yeah. Mm hmm. It's hard were television people we don't want to gush too much, but we could gush a lot when you come on the show. I two I two for you. I mean you people are famous. Oh no, because the electricity you you

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which is created between the two of you. Wonderful. I mean a very friendly electricity. So that viewers sitting in san mateo and in Stockton and places like that are warmed and heartened by you and it's really because of the electricity. Well, thank you How nice of

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you like to gosh, I think gushing is. Thank you very much. You know, we just probably many of you did heard Barbara Bush's commencement speech at at Wellesley. And one of the things she said was go out and follow your dreams, be career women do what,

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But don't forget to find the joy in life. That's it. You must start with that as your as your aim. Not frivolity always. But sometimes frivolity too. But joy is what I signed always in every book. And every autograph everything I end with joy. Because it

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is a kind of umbrella word. It means health, it means focus, it means commitment. It means friendship. It means religion. If you have that romance, it's everything. It's really an umbrella word. So if you say I'm out for joy, I mean joy. That means I take

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responsibility for the time I take up for the space I occupy. I am out for joy. Yes. How did you react? Mm hmm. How did you react when a certain segment of the the women at Wellesley said we don't want Barbara Bush. She has gotten her

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fame in essence through her husband and not on her own. Well, it's it's sad to me to uh see any person um rejected or even accepted because of the label. You see people put labels labels on human beings so they don't have to deal with the

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humanity. They just say, oh that's a that's a that's a jew. Oh that's a kike? Oh that's a ***. Oh that's a jap. Oh that's a faggot. Oh that's a less Oh that's uh an old person. Ah that's a kid. You see then you don't have

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to say, oh, this person longs for easter and and the easter bunny and is afraid of the dark and the heart pumps just as hard in that person as it does in me. So when you look and say, oh this is somebody's wife and that's, that's

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all she is. It is just a label. It says, I don't have to deal with the human being behind that label. And that's unfortunate. Not only, I mean it's mainly unfortunate for the people who put the labels on people. It's not, I mean it's bad to

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be labeled admitted and rejected or neglected are abused because of the label. But the people who put the labels on are the ones whose lives are narrowed down into mean little corners and alleyways. So it's sadder for them in a way. And I would think they

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were talking to her about the fact that she had put so much emphasis on family and not enough on a high powered career but family. As you have said so many times, it's so important. Well you have to wonder to what end always to ask oneself

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itself to what end? If you are out for a great career, to what end that is not all there is. Is that all there is. So if your intention is to have a marvelous career to be resplendent in in responsibility and capability and efficiency and all

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that, to what end. So what there's an african statement, which is the trouble for the thief is not how to steal the chiefs bugle. But where to blow it you see, not just how to get the career, but so what what will you do with it?

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And if it does not serve family and other human beings it is to know valid end. Mm hmm. I think I think Maya you spent a number of years. I don't know exactly how many years as a child not speaking. How many? It doesn't seem like

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any. Now I was about five years of mute and what brought that on. Um I had been raped as a child and and the when I gave the name of the rapist, he was found dead a few days later and I thought that my voice had

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killed a man. I was 7.5. So I mean the 7.5 year old logic, it's pretty weak. And so I decided if I spoke I might injure somebody. So I just stopped talking. And then after a while I loved it. I mean I forgot why I just

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mutinous is is like a drug. I think it's so addictive. It's wonderful talk about mrs flowers because during this period that you were mute. Mrs flowers and dickens played heavily. And yes, Mrs Flowers. Was this gorgeous black woman in my town, little town in Arkansas about

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as big as this part of the stage and she was that beautiful black, that blue black, which seems if you put your fingernail on it, it would peel just gorgeous. And she had a wonderful voice and she talked like that. And she wore dresses sort of

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like this, you know, that moved. And she was just the prettiest thing I'd seen except my mother. And and my grandma Mrs Flowers read to me and she encouraged me to read poetry and to say, I mean to read it after a while, Mrs Flowers asked

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me, she she told me you don't like poetry. And I had a tablet. I'd write everything on I love poetry. She said you will never love it. And she pointed her finger at me ross. And there is something in black America which very few non blacks

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know and many blacks don't even articulate, but it crosses every social economic age group. We have. We do not like to be pointed at one of our phrases, you grow up knowing don't put your finger in my face. I mean now don't don't do that now,

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you can. So so nice people never do that. And Mrs Flowers was very nice. She came she pointed at me, she said you I can't even do it to anybody. And she said you don't like, you will never like it. I wept. I went running from

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the house like a banshee. She followed me, She harassed me, putting her finger in my face. She said, until you have it come across your tongue through your teeth across your lips. You will never love poetry. Finally, after about six months I went under the house

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and I tried and I had a voice I was so amazed, Can you hear your own voice? Is like hearing yourself on a tape recorder? Do I sound like that? And I think I haven't quite stopped talking since then. So that was the moment that broke

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your silence. And we will continue with your talking after this commercial break. We'll be right back with more of Maya. Mm hmm, mm hmm. What a wonderful friday. We're sharing some moments with Maya Angelou this morning. You know I was just saying to you in the

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break I got a letter from a dear friend of mine or actually a friend of hers and mine together and telling me that a friend of mine my own age is very very ill and she's encouraged me to write her back and say something. And I'm

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kind of at a loss at this point. I'm feeling uncomfortable. I don't know how to broach the subject how to say. I know you're gravely ill. That's it. What can I do? You know? Yes. But you shouldn't even ask. I think I don't know. Um I

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have a my darling my ma who is my sweetheart is sick, she's healing. I'm happy to say. I don't think one needs to put the burden of what can I do on somebody who's doing everything she or he can do to resist dis ease. Um, I

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think you simply say I'm sending you my strength. I'm sending you laughter. I'm sending you power. I'm sending you health from my mind to yours. I believe that's what you do. And always I'm sending you love you see an love is not much a lot of

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people you we have misused the word I suggest now this is going to sound like whatever it sounds like. But I suggest that love is that element in the universe which holds the molecules together. It is that thing, it is courage. It is that thing which

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encourages us to build bridges and then to trust the bridges we have built and cross them across a span of an abysmal chasm across them. I think that that's what love is. So when you say I send you love ma, I mean you're sending something, this

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is no play matter you see and so I think to say to a friend, I know you are ill and and I care for you. So I'm sending you all I've got, there's nothing more than that. I think I think we all get real frustrated. We

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turn on the radio, we watch television, see the news, the hatred and the rape and the violence and the cheating and the line and the stealing and you kind of sit back and say what can I do? Well can it be done? I do anything. Yeah,

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well, you know, um and the christian bible, Judeo christian bible, there is the encouragement that all virtues begin at home. I believe that is so and I think it is said in shintoism and buddhism and islam and Judaism and everywhere all virtues begin at home if

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that is so then all vices begin at home. So everything starts here. So what I can do is first is do for myself first I can make myself as kind and as generous and as fair and it's just and maybe even as merciful as possible and

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then that might spread abroad. Maybe I can do that for joe a little bit for flow and some from mo but it must start here. So when when we begin to feel frustrated when we think of the masses of people that one should help. So I

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think if we start step by step it is wise and and we have a chance of having some success and nothing succeeds like success and even access in commenting about racism in this country. You were saying there was a point in history where we were fingertip

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to fingertip almost eye to eye almost yes, that we've had a number of times like that in our, in our american history From the early 1800s when thomas jefferson wrote a letter to some friends and said, let us send these people home the Africans the slaves.

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He said it will take them five generations to forgive us for what we've done to them. And it will take them five generations to come and it will take us five generations to eradicate the erroneous idea that they are inferior. Let us do this now. It

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didn't happen. Benj Benjamin Banneker and he had a wonderful conversation correspondence. Uh, Frederick, Douglass and Harriet. Beecher Stowe. I mean, whatever one thinks of of Uncle Tom's cabin in today's world, one has to look back and see this little frail white woman in the 1850s, writing

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this book the first time saying that blacks were human and it was so powerful a book that when she was met, when President Lincoln met her, he shook her hand and said, So you're the little woman that caused this great big war. It was that powerful.

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So when we look at it today, it is wise not to say, oh, that's an uncle tom and think that that here's another label wiped him out. Eradicate him. But all along, we have had chances among blacks and whites among whites and spanish speaking among asians

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and whites. Between all of us, we've had chances to reach and touch each other. We are somehow so underdeveloped as a species that I'm afraid. Well, I'm afraid I tell you it's distressing to read what you have to say about moving from northern California to north

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Carolina to the south where segregation we thought is much more than here. And you say you'd rather live in the south than live in the north because we're hypocrites. Well, a number of people are hypocrites, I don't want to say everybody, you know, that's like saying

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every blonde is silly. You know, I mean, you've heard that a few times and I can't stand that. We prefer you not say that. I wonder why, Why don't we take a commercial break and we'll come back and we'll be back. Stay tuned. Okay. Mhm. Let's

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address this. You seem to indicate that it's easier. It's not the right word for a black person to live in the south than in the north or the environment is much more beneficial to you. Well, um first, one of the things that seldom spoken of of

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is the beauty of the south. The south is beautiful, otherwise people wouldn't have risked and lost their lives in the attempt to save it, hold it, take it from somebody else. Um Also for black people, for me, it is very sweet to be in the south,

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whites who who Like one a black person or a black person or feel themselves liberal. Well say so, whites who do not will say so in the north. In many cases, whites will have a public liberal nous and the private racism. So it's just easier in

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a way, I don't say that. I mean, I'm not always agreed that that it's it's awful or or superficial for someone to say have a nice day. Um I really do prefer someone saying have a nice day, even if it's hypocritical to drop dead. You know,

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there is that, but but still to live in a, in an atmosphere which one can trust is a very, it's relaxing Dorothy. Um you're, you're saying that it starts at home makes me think of the problems today, of being a woman, being a mother, trying to

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have a career. I'd like your ideas about, I know you're, you are a mother, you raised a child. Uh, and obviously you've achieved many things. How did you do it? Can you be a superwoman? You, you seem like a superwoman to us. That's so, it's so

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awful to, there's another label, you see, I am a mother and a grandmother happily. Um, I think that sometimes women feel in order to, to have careers and to be also wonderful at home and thorough. Uh, they have to be both male and female. I don't

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know, I mean we are all male and female anyway. I don't think that you have to take on the the trappings of a male illness. You see to to be thorough and to be at once in the marketplace and at the same time at home. I

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think you start slowly now there are those who can leap, but the same thing that's in the flea is in the turtle. You know, it may take the turtle a little longer. So don't don't try to make those incredible spans. Just little by little be thorough

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and try to, I mean everything you do is not going to be a success. You know, you got to forgive yourself and go on and do the best you can. And then when you do the best you can compliment yourself, compliment yourself. Let the rest of

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people do whatever they want to do. But you compliment yourself. You didn't good kid, you know, I think so linda. I had the good fortune to hear you reading your poetry while I was driving the car. I pulled over to listen and there was a poem

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I think called brown skinned girl. That was so wonderful. Maybe that was the name. I'm not sure and I can't find it. I see now it was about a girl going down to the water and oh it was. She does not know her beauty. That's not

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my poem. I love it. It's wearing Cooney's poem. I love it. It's a beautiful poem. It's a black american male poet writing in the thirties. Small poem called No Images wearing Cooney. Not at all. But Maya, you have a wonderful poem in your new collection about

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all different kinds of women. Could we kind of maybe encourage you to read that? I would love to Now thank you. Thank you. This is called seven women's blessed assurance. First woman says one thing about me, I'm little and lo find me a man wherever I

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go. The second woman says they call me string bean, I'm so tall. Men see me, they're ready to fall. The third woman says, I'm young as morning, fresh as dew, everybody loves me. So do you. The 4th woman says I'm fat as butter and sweet as

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cake. Men start to tremble every time I shave. Yeah. The 4th woman, sister, I'm little and lean sweet to the bone. They like to pick me up and just carry me home. The 6th woman says when I passed 40, I dropped pretense because men like women

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who got some sense. Okay, But here's my favorite for obvious reasons. 55 is perfect. So it's 59 because every man needs to rest. Sometimes we'll be right back. Mm hmm. Okay. Okay. Mhm, mm hmm. Yeah, kim You had a question. Yeah. I wanted to ask my

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her views on interracial relationships. Thank you. And first time MS angelo, I'm not maya. I'm 62 years old. I have lived so long and tried so hard that a young woman like you or any other has no, you have no license to come up to me

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and call me by my first name. That's first. That's also because at the same time, I am your mother, I'm your auntie, I'm your teacher. I'm your professor. You see, um it's very, the question is, what do I feel about interracial relationships? It is very hard

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to fall in love and stay there. If you fall in love with the fellow who lives next door who whose parents are friends with your parents and the same race and the same culture and you've gone to the same church all your lives. And so it

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is very hard for those two people to maintain an honorable relationship. I mean two people from the same race and culture Throughout the 40 50 years of a marriage. It is more difficult if you come from separate from other cultures it's more difficult. But love is

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love. People fall in love. If there is nothing one can do about falling in love, you may fall in love with a person who whose family is in feuding with your family. This is classic. One sees that in Romeo and Juliet. You see when the capulets,

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when these two families were warring, one sees that when asian men fall in love with white women. When white men fall in love with mexican women or black men fall in love with white people don't sit out and say okay I'm gonna make it hard for

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myself. I'm gonna go and fall in love with somebody. I got to explain it to my people. I got to explain it to their people. I got to explain it to people in the street. I'm gonna have to take care of all the Children. I'm gonna

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people don't set out to do that. But when they fall in love I have the feeling that you ought to be grateful for it respected honor it. That is my feeling you. I just told her that she should call you. MS Angelo. MS Angelo dr Angelo.

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Professor Angelo. Auntie. Is that part of the problem in this culture that we have? There's not enough discipline. There's not enough respect. There is, pardon me what hold hold on Sanders and I'm from north Carolina and I'm I'm so happy that you went back there because

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it is a peaceful place. I've been out here in California about eight years and there is no respect. Well, alright sister, I agree. I only think that the Children. No, no, only what we teach them. If there is something wrong in the generations which last two

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generations which did not carry on the tradition. And I think this is true, not just in the black community. This is true in the white community. In all the communities, we have not taken the Children to our knees and told them the truth. Darling, here's the

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way it is. You live in directories relation to the poets, the heroes and the xiros. You have always honor the elders or then you honor yourself, Honor women, you honor yourself, Honor men, you honor yourselves. Watch your mouth. Watch what you say to to another human

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being. Don't be so ready to be rude. You have to teach the Children that people don't jump up out of out of cribs, baby cribs and know that so somebody has not done the right thing, that's all I'm saying, and you know, it's it's very difficult

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to be a teacher and yet each one of us is a teacher, people are looking at every one of us, There are small people who watch you as you walk down the street, they said, well, I like the way she walks, Oh, I like the way

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he talked. Did you see him turn that corner, You see how he wears his hair, People are watching, small people are watching, So we're all teachers, but to take the responsibility for it to be a teacher is to call somebody and say baby come here, that's

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not right now, that's not right, that's not right now, you take a chance that the person would say go to hell, excuse me, but it's true, but still you have to take that chance with all the Children because they are all our Children, the black ones

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or white ones are asian, spanish speaking native american alley youth, they are all our Children, I take them for myself, Oh, that's mine, we will be back in only moments. Hi, um, I was wondering how you feel about Malcolm X and the black muslim movement, hmm,

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those are two different things, whichever one you want to talk about Malcolm X was a friend and brother to me and I have written about him and all God's Children need traveling shoes and Alex Haley's book, the autobiography of Malcolm X speaks of me and Malcolm

00:30:15.730 - 00:30:44.240

And Peter Goodman's book on Malcolm X has about 30 pages on our brother Sisterhood. He was a brother friend to me. Um I have dedicated books to him, he was a courageous and brilliant and very funny man. The aspect of Malcolm X and martin Luther King,

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which is most neglected is that both of them were men of great humor as well as great heart. Um the black muslim movement In the 50s and 60s and into the 70's saved so many young black men and young black women gave them focus, self esteem,

00:31:11.610 - 00:31:36.660

some sense of history and some sense of the future and educated in a number of men and women. When Malcolm X left the movement, he left for personal reasons which he made very public, he said he had gone to mecca and then the same person who

00:31:36.660 - 00:31:55.730

had said all whites were blue eyed devils said after he went to Mecca. I find I was wrong. I have met men with blue eyes and blond hair who I can sincerely call brother. Now to be able to say that means that a person has gone

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through a particular kind of metamorphosis and it takes a lot of courage to say to anybody, I mean for an unknown person, not a famous person to say, hey everybody, you know what I said yesterday, I don't believe that anymore. It takes a great deal of

00:32:11.850 - 00:32:32.920

courage to say nationally and internationally say folks everything I've said, I believe, save this, I do not believe that anymore Malcolm X was a man of great courage and the muslim movement has proved itself to be of incredible importance in the black and other communities. All

00:32:32.920 - 00:32:49.960

right. Yes. Darren. Um, you said you mentioned you were raped as a child. I was wondering if you had any words for maybe people out there who were maybe abused in that way or other ways that still have not overcome it. Oh, thank you very much.

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One doesn't overcome it. I don't think, I don't know. I don't think there's a day in my life. I haven't thought about it. I mean one overcomes it. Yes, but one doesn't forget it. I think that one has to take the abuse and the abuser as

00:33:09.970 - 00:33:32.620

single incidents, The abuser as a single person and the, the event as a single incident in one's life and one must not say, oh then every person who looks like this is an abuser, you see. And every action towards me is going to be a replica

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of the event, repetition of the event. one has to work really seriously with one's own intelligence and spirit to try to isolate it. It's like a, a sore in the body, you can't say because I have a very bad knee to which I have that the

00:33:52.910 - 00:34:11.990

whole leg is bad, you see, or the whole body is corrupted or something. So I think that first you have to admit what happened, admit to yourself what has happened. And then if you can tell somebody, tell a friend, tell a parent, tell and somebody in

00:34:11.990 - 00:34:31.920

authority tell it, speak it, say it. That's those are the things I would I would encourage. And then someone who has much more expertise, much more qualifications than I can encourage a person to deal with it. But you don't forget it and don't expect that you

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ever will joe. Um Yeah, I recently read your book. I know why the caged bird sings and I was wondering how can you look back on your childhood and remember it with such detail because I was only that like young a few years ago and I

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couldn't remember it that well. Well I think that mutinous had something to do with my memory being a mute. So many years I used to think of myself as my whole body as an ear. It's true. And I felt I could go into a room and

00:35:03.330 - 00:35:21.910

just pick up all sounds. I find that my brain changed itself. I think in those years physiologically when I didn't speak, the brain probably said, you know, they say after if you lose one sense, the other senses are enhanced. Well my brain didn't have to deal

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with speaking so that part of it might have shifted over to something else. Anyway. I seem to have total recall or none at all. I remember. Absolutely. I remember nothing. And we shall return. Okay. Mm hmm. Yeah. LaToya. Yes. Miss Angelo. I would like to know

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well my 9th Grade English class just finished. I know why the caged bird sings and I would like to know why did you rush through the ending? And is there any particular reason you didn't put the father's name in the book? That's a lovely question. Oh,

00:36:17.110 - 00:36:40.590

that's lovely. Before I answer that, let me see. Um, to kim I apologize for being so sharp. I apologize. I have, I'm not usually so short. It just caught me off guard. I saw you at 14. I thought well, but I apologize. The, I've never heard

00:36:40.590 - 00:37:00.450

that sad that book was published before you were born 20 years ago and I rushed through the ending. Well, hmm. I may have seemed to do so let. Oy but the truth is I went on to write four more books you see in the same thing.

00:37:00.450 - 00:37:13.450

So I was maybe I was just trying to stop that so I could start the next book. I wouldn't have thought I wanted to, I wanted to end on the most positive thing event in my life and that was the birth of my son and it

00:37:13.450 - 00:37:30.980

is still the most positive thing in my life. I am the most red black female writer in the world. I'm at teaching all sorts of languages and all sorts of disciplines and I'm this and that and the first black female director in Hollywood and many, many

00:37:30.980 - 00:37:47.260

things. The most positive thing that ever happened to me was the birth of my son. He is the monument. If I have one in the in the world, that is my monument. So I wanted to end their now the father's name. The father had not agreed

00:37:47.260 - 00:38:09.780

that he was the father of my child. So I at once did not want to either make him public. No, I didn't want to intrude. But at the same time I didn't want to give him any of the glory. Well, Maya Angelou has a new book

00:38:09.780 - 00:38:26.340

out. I shall not be moved new poems that she has written as we go away this morning. And by the way you are invited to our living room anytime you wish to visit as we go away this morning. Would you read the poem Human Family and

00:38:26.340 - 00:38:43.510

thank you for being here. Thank you everybody. And the truth is I'm one of the most red black female writers in the world. I keep talking too much and too fast. I note the obvious differences in the human family. Some of us are serious. Some thrive

00:38:43.510 - 00:39:03.260

on comedy. Some declared their lives are lived as true profundity and others claim no, they really live the real reality. The variety of our skin tones can confuse bemused delight brown and pink and beige and purple, tan and blue and white. I've sailed upon the Seven

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seas and stopped in every land and seen the wonders of the world. Not yet one common man. I know 10,000 women named jane or mary jane, but I have not seen any to who really were the same. Mirror twins are different, although their features jibe and

00:39:20.700 - 00:39:41.050

lovers think quite different thoughts while lying side by side. We love and lose in china. We weep on England's moors, laugh and moan in guinea and thrive on spanish shore's. We seek success in Finland are born and die in maine. In minor ways, we differ in

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major. We are the same. I note the obvious differences between each sort and type. But we are more like my friends than we are unalike. We are more alike. My friends than we are unalike. We are more alike. My friends than we are unalike. Mm hmm.

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Mhm. Mhm.