Letter to My Daughter by Maya Angelou Read Free Book Online Page B

you can sense no meaning in our speech.
    Yet, we are here. We are still here. Our hearts ache to support you.
             
    We are always loving you.
             
    You are not alone.

In the Valley of Humility
    In the early seventies I was invited to speak at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem. The school had only recently been integrated.
    I told my husband that the visit interested me. He was a master builder and had just signed a large contract so he could not accompany me. I called my close friend in New York. Dolly McPherson said she would meet me in Washington, D.C., and we could travel south together.
    My lecture was well received at the school and before I could leave the building, the students came up to me and asked me to meet with them.
    I went with Dolly to the student lounge where there, the students crowded in on every sofa, chair, stool, and pillow on the floor. They were pointedly separate with the black students seated down front in a group.
    There was no hesitation in offering questions. One young white male said, “I am nineteen, I am going to be a man, but strictly speaking, I’m still a boy. But that guy there,” he pointed to the black student, “gets mad if I call him boy and we’re the same age. Why is that?” I waved at the black student, “There he is, why not ask him?”
    A black female student said, “I went to a good high school where I graduated valedictorian. I speak good English. Why do they,” she nodded to the white students, “think I need them to speak to me in accents so thick I can hardly understand?”
    I asked her to tell me how she was spoken to. She said, “They say, ‘Hey y’all, how y’all doin’? Y’all okay?’” She spoke with such an extreme exaggerated southern accent that everyone laughed.
    I said, “They are right there, why don’t you ask them?” As they began talking to one another, I realized that I was being used as a bridge. The parents of those students had never had a language, which allowed them to speak to one another as equals, and now their children were creating a way which would allow them to have a dialogue. I sat with them until midnight, encouraging, abetting, and urging them to speak.
    When I stood, exhausted, Tom Mullin, the Dean of Wake Forest College came to me with an offer, “Dr. Angelou, if ever you want to retire, we welcome you to Wake Forest University. We will gladly make a place for you.” I thanked him politely knowing that I would never come to the South to live.
    The next morning, Dolly and I were taken to the airport early enough to have breakfast in the cafe. We were given a table and ordered breakfast. We sat unserved for more than thirty minutes. I noticed that she and I were the only black customers in the restaurant.
    I told Dolly, “Sister, prepare to go to jail, because if these people don’t want to serve us I am going to turn the place out.”
    She said calmly, “All right, Sis.”
    I called the waitress over, a white lanky young woman. I said, “My sister ordered a cheese omelet and I ordered bacon and eggs, thirty minutes ago. If you don’t want to serve us, I advise you to tell me so, and then call the police.”
    The young woman was immediately solicitous. Speaking in her soft North Carolina accent, she said, “No ma’am, it’s not that, it’s just that the chef run out of grits. He can’t serve breakfast without grits. See, half of the people on this side are not eating. The grits will be ready in about ten minutes and then I will serve you.” She pronounced the word “grits” as if it had two syllables—“gri-its.”
    I felt the ninny of all times. My face became hot and my neck burned. I apologized to the waitress somehow, and Dolly McPherson controlled herself, and did not mention my stupidity. When I returned to my sturdy home and steady husband, I told everyone about the school, the students and the offer. I did not mention the airport drama.
    I was married to Paul DuFeu,