Her voice was soft only because she chose to keep it so.
She was taller than any woman in my personal world, and her hands were so large they could span my head from ear to ear. People spoke of Mama as a good looking woman and some who remembered her youth said she used to be right pretty. Tell me a little bit about Mama?Īngelou: Mama for me was my grandmother. We are both from the South, and we’ve both been raised and reared by our grandmothers. I know that you and I have a lot in common. I am Sierra Leone, your host for today, joining me today is the incomparable Dr. When a human being does not have to account for their entire race when they make an individualized choice or decision is my personal definition of white/majority privilege. As a Black woman and mother, I know there is trauma that comes with black people succeeding. Maya's first hand account took me back to my childhood, summers spent on the West Bank of Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
Just like Joe Louis, athletes today are using their platforms to permanently change the narrative. Leone: Ahh, It didn’t occur to me immediately but I needed to start right here! This short ethnographic narrative paints a picture of Angelou’s childhood and echoes an energetic spirit that brings my modern day senses to life. You see, it wouldn’t do for a black man and his family to be caught on a lonely country road on a night when Joe Louis just proved that we were the strongest people in the world. Those who lived too far had made arrangements to stay in town. It would take an hour or more before the people would leave the store and head for home. Those not chased away came back blowing their breath in front of themselves like proud smokers. Some of the men went behind the store and poured white lightning in their soft drink bottles, and a few of the bigger boys followed them. People drank Coca-Colas like ambrosia and ate candy bars like Christmas. “The winner and still the heavyweight champion of the world. Then that voice husky and familiar came to wash over us. Let’s get the microphone over to the referee. The fight is all over ladies and gentlemen. There were a few sounds from the audience but they seemed to be holding themselves in against tremendous pressure.
Is the contender trying to get up again? All the men in the store shouted “No!” Eight. Babies slid to the floor, as women stood up and men leaned toward the radio. The referee is moving in but Louis sends a left to the body and it’s an uppercut to the chin and then the contender’s dropping. Transcipt (edited lightly for length and clarity):Īngelou. Our special program, Take Time Out begins with reading by Angelou from her memoir “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.” It’s a remembrance of the time the African American boxing champion Joe Louis defeated a white challenger. Maya Angelou died in 2014 and yet, through an act of poetic imagination, Sierra Leone and Maya Angelou had a lively conversation across the years. Last year, Dayton poet Sierra Leone heard that amazing voice in the WYSO archives – and as she listened, found herself talking TO the tape. Somehow a copy of that reel-to reel-recording ended up in the WYSO collection, and ten years ago it was digitized. Among the hundreds of recordings in WYSO Archive, there’s an interview between the American poet Maya Angelou and an interviewer named Lin Harris from radio station WBAI in New York made in 1975.
0 kommentar(er)
