Dr. Maya Angelou at Evergreen, “Rainbow in the Clouds.”

producing dr. joy Hardiman the executive director of our Tacoma campus who will do the internet jewelry has joy has held the position of executive director since 1990 this will be her final year in that role as she goes on sabbatical and goes back to teaching and doing marvelous things but the wonderful thing about joy is even as an administrator she's always maintained that hunger and has continued to teach she has made incredible gains and growth in our Tacoma campus her teaching philosophy focuses on using ancient wisdom to explore an envision solution to contemporary problems she's an international executive board member of the Association for the study of classical African civilizations she was a summer full byte bright scholar and has done extensive field work on African presence in global history she's a brilliant conceptualist and an extraordinarily inspirational teacher please join me in welcoming dr. Hart thank you thank you it is my great honor and privilege to introduce dr. Maya Angelou to you tonight she is a woman who speaks six languages is the author of seven autobiography twelve books of poetry six plays two screenplays three spoken word albums and multiple TV and film appearances she is a woman whose legendary wisdom spans time and content dr. Maya Angelou is a woman who embodies the essence of the classical African ancient Egyptian creative mandate as voiced by Queen shut - who wrote on the wall governmental in the Valley of the Kings I take as my sacred mission to devote my life to restoring that witches in room and make it more beautiful than before dr. dr. Angelou is a restorer and a transformer she is a woman whose practice is based in the ancestral connection to the African concept of hecka which is the evocative power of language to accomplish what one will as taught in the great universities of Timbuktu and Sangha and Jenna dr. Angelou uses words as next to catch and restore and renew our spirit and soul she is a woman who stands on the shoulders and walks in the tradition of such great African storytellers and writers as ESOP Dumas Pushkin Langston huge and Zora Neale Hurston she tells the story of common folks in a way that allows us to see their and our humanity she is a person who reminds us that sons Rises always follows sunsets that human beings are birds and not nouns and there were all miracles in the process of becoming so join me in welcoming author poet historian educator actress play my director Oh and let me back when it looks like the Sun won their shine anymore God put a rainbow in the clouds she does not know her beauty she thinks her brown body has no glory if she could dance naked under palm trees and see her image in the river she would know but there are no palm trees on the street and dishwater gets back no images hmm when it looked like the Sun was shining in war once thriving in old Baltimore my head was filled my heart was filled with glee I saw a Baltimore young keep looking straight at me now I was eight and very small and she was no way bigger and so I smiled but she stuck out her tongue and told me she said you did lack no good ich she said dirty little rascal make hmm I saw the whole of Baltimore from me on this dental December and of all the things that happen there that's all I remember mm-hmm still when it looked like the Sun when there's shine anymore miss Rosie when I see you you black brown beige wind yellow pink white south of a woman when I see you miss Rosie sitting waiting for your mind like last week's groceries I said when I see you miss Rosie you in the old man shoes with the big toes cut out when I see you who used to be the prettiest gal in Georgia used to be called Georgia Rose when I see you miss Rosie because of your dedication your devotion your intelligence your courage and your love I stand up miss Rosie and stand straight up and I know when it looked like the Sun was shining in lore miss Rosie hue became my rainbow in the clouds thank Oh evergreen and come to you with a light and lighted heart my days these days are not light but I was coming to Evergreen and so knowing I was coming here I knew I was coming to a rainbow in the client some of you don't know this but the doctor members who was mentioned by your president that purse dr. moons is a sister friend of mine and she invited me here all those years ago she had been a professor at University and she realized that there was a an evergreen Olivia but there was a mean there was not a place for poor black men and women over 18 and poor Native American and poor white and pure poor Latino men and women to visit to go to school she began to harass the state see this black woman began evergreen in her kitchen that the Tacoma branch was begun in her kitchen and when there so many people came blacks and whites spanish-speaking and Native American she broke the wall between the kitchen and the dining room I know that the Maxine Mims is a rainbow in the clouds and I thought I know that because I know that I know that Evergreen is one so having you to look forward to made it possible for me in the last few weeks to to live with an hour world where beautiful sister friend of mine has left and of course when anybody leaves all those you've lost it leave again and so but I kept thinking I'm going to Evergreen yes this is who we are each one of us is young man young woman older man old auto eyes man my doctor trying to get on my good side said to me upper upper middle aged I was oh please I said I'll do anything you say so this is who we really are so I thought but sensei I mean I do believe in preaching to the choir I know you are already converted but I do believe I've decided to talk to you about rainbows in the cloud for the next three or four hours I hope you brought everything wait I have to sit down from time to time I always a for many years I have had a very bad write to me I mean it was known as the bad knee and if people who didn't even know me but coming down tangelo how's the bad knee but my left knee was very good about six months ago my left hand he began to feel sympathetic to the right mood and so both of them are horrid so my hosts have put this chair this stool up here for me and I will use it I'm sorry for my darlings just in front of here in fact if the microphone could be moved if I understand that mic I could just use that and but never mind I mean um anyway I'm here and I'm 10 I came here to say something and I'm not going to leave until I say it so there yeah and I will stand up and then out her to mouse tender but to talk about rainbows in the clouds each one of us has had rainbows in our cloud whether the ancestors came from Eastern Europe trying to escape big the pogroms the little and large murders arriving at Ellis Island having their names changed to something utterly unpronounceable or if the ancestors came from Scandinavia from Italy Hungary South America Mexico trying to find the face of the told all the people all the faces if the ancestors came from new and old delhi um if they came from asia in the 19th century to build this country to build a railroad I'm able legally to bring their mates for decades or indeed if they came from Africa unwillingly lying spoon fashion that means back to belly in the filthy edges of slave ships and in their own and in each other's excrement and urine and menstrual flow they have paid for each of us already you see we have always had rainbows in our clouds whether they had a chance of ever knowing but I names would be but our faces would look like what mad personalities we were forced upon the world they have paid funds until it's a wonderful thing to honor those who have paid for you if you know their names you must honor them by saying that names allowed if you don't know their thanks for what you've done for me whoever you were you must believe people live in direct relation to the heroes and Shiro's they have always and in all ways so if a song of the Beatles helped you to see the light if a song of B became our Aretha Franklin helped you to understand something if Tim McGraw our faith hid not truth truth isn't it no I'm telling you I'm an aficionado of country music and so and so I do the country music television about once a year and the last time I was asked to come and introduce mr. Martina McBride and they asked with our work walk on the red carpet where walking is difficult with these ridiculous stupid knees and and I said oh you know those people are waiting for Toby Keith and all those you know some of the Wild Ones are big and rich and so and my should I walk up and said no I will do it I want on the red carpet and those people who are like that on either side to just is you know we love you and when I got to the to the theater to the Aqualand Ryman and lent out to introduce Martina McBride pattern of 15,000 or 20,000 people stood to greet me now what that tells me is you don't have to be the rainbow in the clouds to people who look just like you hello you may have enough intelligence and courage to look through complexion and see community hello so so being a rainbow in the clouds it's the most noble thing we can be you see two people who who may not call John the same name we call John if they call God at all but to be a rainbow in the clouds so I thought I'd speak to you about might some of the rainbows I know but this is just some when I was three and my brother five my mother and father we lived in Southern California my mother and father agreed to disagree they separated and they even divorced now I know there are people who say what a pity I'm ashamed the result of it of a divorced family of and it's true sometimes but then sometimes we ought to get a grip some people ought to be that good my mother and father did my nation of baby did rated us all thank know then this moves were not so Swift they put me and Bailey on on a train in Los Angeles with tags around on our arms no adult supervision I was three they live us fine the tag said these children are to be delivered to mrs. Annie Henderson in stamps Arkansas stamps arkantos a village about the site a little bit larger than this state not a larger the gym because of the kind of offices of the dining car waiter than the Pullman car porters we actually arrived in that village I can't believe it it's over 70 years ago and they they took us off trained and put us on other than and we have live in this teeny little village with my grandma my father's mother and her other child man to Lily now they own the only black owned store in the town and they needed me and Bailey to work in the store I mean my Uncle Willie was crippled his whole right side was paralyzed his left side was huge because in that side of the family we grow to be very tall and broad and I at my grandmother was old by the time we got there I mean she must have been 50 so they needed that I think my grandmother taught me to read that afternoon when I pray but my uncle Willie taught me my time statements and he would grab me this with his strong big left side and stand me in front of a pot-bellied stove with fire in it and he said not sister with the slur attendant to his paralysis it's a sister now do your X's just to do your nines is just to do your 10 Z I learned my multiplication tables exquisitely I was so sure if I didn't somehow even manage to open that park pellet stove throw me and they think low of course I found that he was so tender-hearted he wouldn't allow a spider or fly to be killed in the store Bailey and I had to catch the offender and take it outside where he thought we would kill it maybe we did I mean with but he would take me so Uncle Willie taught me to do my times Davis I'm sorry to say my Uncle Willie died some years ago so I went down to stands to see about affairs I stopped in Little Rock and a woman came out to the airport a great American and late a treasurer Miss Daisy Bates now if you don't know her get on your Google go go boom and and find Daisy Bates she's a woman the black woman who led the nine children into the Central High School in Little Rock causing the governor to come out and pay that show the pure fool that he was governor Orval Faubus said over my dead body the governor state gonna say he didn't want my children to tell him because he had disagreed with God's choice for the colors of the people's skin so he stood at which caused the president Ike Eisenhower to send down the federal troops to look after those nine kids it's an interesting story and on your Google Oh anyway she met me at the airport I didn't have to tell you she was black toast here's what you say girl girl I know you're Danny on you later stamps but there's somebody dying to meet you and I wanna bring him to your hotel okay so that's it okay she brought about thirty people demand but she brought this black man who was all of that I said how do you do he said I don't want to shake your hand I want to hug you I said that show preaching Kayson are you down here in Arkansas because Willie has died my jaw fell to my chest what this man in a three-piece suit way up north and Little Rock had even heard him out - Billy absolutely was so ashamed of being crippled that he wouldn't even go to new Adele Arkansas which was five miles from stamps and the county seat this man helps in in Little Rock up north in a three-piece suit he said you know because of your Uncle Willie and who I am today he said you know in the 30s I was the only child of a blind mother Janka Willie gave me a job in your store and paid me ten cents to be and made me love to learn and he taught me my time stayed as it had any good he said he used to grab me right here is it because of him I'm Who I am did he want to know who that is that's it yes sir he said I'm mayor of The Rock Arkansas one of the first blacks in the south and listen Willie at the mind nor would he ever even know how far the light of his rainbow shown he said now because of him and what I learned anew every time I have a police escort for you to take you from Little Rock convoy from Little Rock to stamp socking time it's a night I want you to stop and lure them cuz there's a good old boy he'll look after your property and that told me I'll call you I went downstairs the next morning and I was thrown back I don't know how many years to being eight 6 when the boys was ride in stamps testers how they would be told be careful the boys are gonna ride tonight I my brother and I would take the potatoes and onions out of a bin and helped my uncle Illya to get down into that bin and we cover him with potatoes and onions it was dangerous for any black man to be extant on a night when the boys with line we would cover him with potatoes and onions and then look out the window outside the boys they were men on horseback and they'd stomp around in front of the store they didn't wear sheets they didn't have to they were the law so to whom good anybody protest the next morning in Little Rock Arkansas I went downstairs and there were eight white men just looking just like the boys that huge guns would set up I couldn't believe it I started to cry into laughs I went to each one I shook his hand giggling big kiss I said I want to thank you in the name of my uncle Billy dead still being the rainbow in my cloud you see I had this story goes on because it well um I stopped in Louisville to see this lawyer and the mayor had said he's a good old boy he looked after you I expected an older black man with dignity and many years to speak to me older than our president but looking much like an authority in control I mean this president justin cake doesn't taste you out that i didn't know i was in washington state there's a young man young white man ran out of the office he said nothing hello i'm just lighted to see you he said the mayor coming from Little Rock he's their only the strongest most powerful black man I have a man he's a nobleman that's Angelo because of him and who I am today and so don't let me sit down anyway he said that I'm the only child of a deaf mother mr. Bussie the mayor told me when I was 11 years old and made me understand how important it was for me to get an education for me and my mother and dr. Angelou I'm not just in this and another I'm in the state legislature and look back at me lady you see poor black male during the lynching years and crippled more so I have no idea of the width of brick a height that his where his rainbow is young in fact last month in Washington DC there was a groundbreaking for the memorial for Martin Luther King and I was one of the speakers I spoke and when I finished a young white man with his wife came plunging through with children he said dr. Angelou dr. Angela wait a minute I want to speak to you so I said yes fine he said that my family we are we are are we all tied together so I said our he said many years ago I think my grandfather was able to be of help to you so I should own he said yes he said in and he was then in Louisville I can so easily was a lawyer and in the state legislature I asked him in your family name he said prior which is the name of the young man I told this story before but I never mentioned his name because I didn't want to violate his privacy but the young man came he said then dr. Angelou it is mr. Bussie who was the mayor was very kind to my grandfather and I want you to know that I am a congressman really - never underestimate who you are of what you are I wrote a song for miss Roberta Flack I write for some singers from time to time but this song she sings it better than I did but I wrote it and I ever did for all of us Willy was a man without flame hardly anybody knew his name prevalent level always walking Lane he said I keep on moving and moving just the same solid will was the climate in his head emptiness was the partner in his bed paying at home in the steps of his tread he said active on farming where the others live I will cry and I will die but my spirit is the soul of every spring look for me and you will see that her present in the songs of children saying people call them uncle boy and hey said you can't live through this another day and then he waited to hear what he was saying he said I'd be living in the games that children play you may enter my sleep you may people my dreams and threatened my early mornings ease but I keep coming and following and laughing and crying I'm certain as a summer breeze look for me look out for me my spirit is a surge of open seas call for me call up on me and the rustle in the autumn leaves when the Sun rises I am the time when the children live and learn and laugh and love I am the ride you can just call me crippled way that's who we are that's just who we are each one of us we've already had the rainbows in our clouds or we wouldn't be here and that's just who we are we are rainbow we have the possibility of shining on a path that was very crooked and helping to make it a little straighter for people who are yet to come on a path that is really terribly bumpy dangerous and smoothing out the way but someone who is yet to come and and flooded with things I want to tell you and and I'd even I think I'd thank you baby years ago I used to keep them and should write I had a flat in London and he's right there so I would go there for three or four months of the time and work from midnight till about 7:00 and then I would take a shower and go out and try to let some of the ideas fresh shared ideas come into my brain one morning I was walking down King's relatives about 7:30 and a little chilly and I was walking down Kings Road and there were two young people sitting with their backs against the storm I simply recorded them they had the little doll that little brown dog we all know that dog he was hearing together it was in terms of the endowment Village in New York mr. dog they had two guitars backpacks and I simply saw them before I could reach them a man came out of the shop which means he'd gone around to come in through the bag and he turned and he sped on these two young people I don't mean he's fat I mean he cleared his throat and spat on these two young people Matt they were white he was white he couldn't tell that those children were English or Irish or well they could have been scandinavian Hungarian Italian he did I knew they were mine I accepted instead it now I'm not much of a cursor that's not that's not one of my arts there's an odd kid but but I went to him and I just took us in the hills and I stand talking and I didn't know all that I was soon I said you not move smooth with it Jimmy Eaton never hold it down I put ridges on my lips you know the man turned and ran inside the children they started gathering all their belongings they never spoke a word to me so I never found out where they were from but I did go home and again I wrote a song when you see them on the freeway hitching rides with the dogs and they did turns by this side you need to ask what's on the line and the die and the killing and the thrilling all about take time out when you see him with a band around his head and an army Trump bake up break up that makes his bed you need to ask what's all the beating and the cheating and the bleeding and the meeting all about take time I take a minute feel some sorrow for the folks who thought tomorrow was a place that they could call up on the phone take a month and show some kindness for the folks who thought that blindness was an illness that affected eyes are known when you see her walking barefoot in the rain and you know she's tripping on a one-way train you need to ask what's all the yelling and the selling the beating and the cheating on battle take time man oh you can sell your soul for money then run up to the country for your cookouts and your parties on the lawns while our children seek sedation in Eastern meditation or visions that go shooting up there when you know that youth is dying on the run and my daughter trades dope stories with your son we need to ask what's all the warring and the German the killing and the trilling the beating and the cheating the bleeding and in needing all about we better take down even my intention to read to you a whole lot of poetry and I've been talking poetry then to read it to you because it's so important and I want you at Evergreen at Olympia campus and at the Tacoma campus I want you to please reinstitute the habit of memorizing poetry memorize some questions and I would like to think that you would memorize some Angelou and some tall large Dumbo yes I'm gonna be I'm gonna say some Dunbar tea and some Shakespeare I want you to have it you'll need it I love Edgar Allan Poe myself I love Co so much I called him EEP in a familiar way and to tell you that all those years later when I returned to my mother in San Francisco I was 13 and I had spent six years as it had to volunteer mute and I returned to my mother and my mother was a strange bird she thought all children should go to see at least two plays a year and they should be back in the house and blues that she liked and all the old blues singers I mean she had them are the big boy Crudup really ovals and Doc did very nice you didn't know what you wake up to the great chords in the universe are they flee don't go at one time she she had tickets to the current theater and four great famous American movie stars we're going to come and read poetry so she had tickets and we went Bailey and I Tyrone Power Gregory Peck and Baxter and Agnes Moorehead and the two women came out in dark black dresses with pearls and the two men in dark suits and tuxedos and they had podium for podium and they each read and then I saw in the in the program that Gregory Peck was going to do the Raven now I had never heard it a read or anything but I had I knew it and memorized it and because of the internal rhyme I had memorized in the forties much like the hip-hop people speak today so I had understood it to me Once Upon a midnight dreary as I pondered weak and weary over many - killing time you got no head I nodded just like napping suddenly I heard a tapping as of someone gently rapping rapping at my chamber door tis some visitor Gregory Peck came out and he took that that Shakespearean stance you know that Shakespearean actors do I said what's Upon a midnight dreary as I pondered weak and weary as if that's not the one I'm had I up in st. Louis I had been when I was seven I was taken there from my grandmother in Arkansas I was taking it there to my mother's family and her family were extremely erudite and sophisticated and educated and they totally get they even called Bologna Bologna well I mean my brother and I were trying to get to big city kids and they tried to learn to talk like that we ate sliced bread and liverwurst and things like that but my mother's boyfriend raped I told the name of the rapist to my brother who told it to the family the man was put in jail for one day and released one day and night and about three days later and the police came to my mother's mother's house her into her parlor floor where Bailey and I were playing a game we called it mana Poli cuz we never heard it for mana and when the police came in and and there were two huge policemen and white and they had do search uniforms in the 30s blue serge was about a quarter of an inch thick if not thicker and they had huge brass buttons like that shining like new money they look like giants to me and they told my mother's mother that the man had been found dead and it seemed he had been kicked to death I thought my voice killed a man so for everybody's sake it was better if I didn't speak so I stopped then traumatized finished my mother's people did their best to rule me away from my mutism they sang they did everything but I wouldn't so after about three months they sent me and Bailey back to stand something's up this little village - mama and I'd love you to see mama I may in fact even finish tonight with mama mama who's like everybody's grandma I mean she could have been career home chica been here Annie she could have been Senegalese she could have been Irish his mama Japanese when I returned to mama my mama would braid my hair the way old black lady's still great girl's hair the mama sits down on the chair and pulls her dress way down between her legs like that and the girl sits on a pillow and both of them face out the girl trying to get back close to mama and my hair was huge and very curvy so mama had her her work cut I found her she'd been there in like that and put it behind my neck so she wouldn't break my neck by accident and she's got to brush all this hair she says just a momma don't care what these people say that you must be an idiot you must be a because you came tongue since the mama don't care mama know when you and the Dennard get ready just are you gonna be a teacher I just sit there and think this boy doesn't she know I will never speak I thank my hosts both the president then and sister joy dr. joy I grow by thanking and I thank you all I thank him for being fairly brief in but and sometimes when I'm being introduced I feel I met my own weight you know she was and then in nineteen out forty she did so I thought the truth is I now have over 60 doctorates I'm late now late now wait a minute and I teach in Spanish and French all over the world and theology and philosophy and so the truth is I am able to be here because of the Rainbows in my clans my grandmother was a rainbow in that class madam to Lily was a rainbow in my cloud I mean it was cloudy yeah my brother has been a rainbow in my clowns all mouth they're still lighting up the way for me when I'm most lonely I feel most written I think of them I bring them right into the theater with me they're here in this gym everyone that I ever loved me whoever said morning who knew me or didn't know me and said how are you I you have no idea what that didn't mean to somebody you can see a person she may have just hung up the phone I'm having a nurse say and we would like you to come back in sure we want to read that again each time you say morning you have no idea when somebody just heard from an employer look we're gonna downsize mr. Jones I'm sorry to say we'd like you to come in and get your belongings and for a moment you've said hello honey you have no idea what you've done just for a second the person has lifted up she said she'd go to my church just for a brief moment you've lifted somebody up who may not look like you there's a statement folks and especially here until limpia counters and at the comedy I really want you to look into this the statement is home Oh soon who money Lee he'll an al-anon puto I am a human being nothing human can be alien to me when you look in the encyclopedia for that name Terrance with one arm you will see in italics Terentius effort he was an African he was sold to a Roma slain so to a Roman senator the senator freed him he became the most popular playwright in Rome five of his plays and that statement have come down to us here here at this university in this library five of his plays and that one statement have come down to us from 154 BC he's man not one bite not mourn free or with any chance of ever achieving citizenship in the realm of his day said I am a human being nothing human can be alien to me now if you can say that of course that means that if a human being commits the most famous crime you can never again to or actually do that no you have to say if a human being did it I had within myself the components that are in that human being mine I hope our range of it differently and if not I intend to use my energies constructively as opposed to destructively but if you can do that with a negative look at what you can do with the positive it means every human being dreams a great dream dares to develop courage the most important of all the virtues because without courage you can't access any other virtue consistently you can be anything erratically but to be that thing time and time again now you can do that then if a human being dares to love someone hmm and has an unmitigated gall to accept love in return it means you can do you see you are liberated I do the convocation at Duke University every year for the last 15 years and I've told them if they didn't ask me any time they don't ask me I'll be the tall black woman outside picketing and insist upon but I talk to 2,000 young men and women about to go into the university come in they have already been registered and this is their first this is the conversation and I start by saying by and I buy and buy and lay down this heavy load that's time with them and I congratulate them for being in a university in a place filled with information I place heared built founded to share information a place plan built to liberate each one of us from our ignorance so here you can drop it at any moment you can drop it just look at it no I don't like them because my father never stopped well I don't trust because he's gay you can't do it and that's why you're here some people think oh I'm here and then I'm gonna meet that guys about two inches taller than I am an infant and he's gonna be a lawyer I'm gonna be a doctor she's here I'm gonna meet that girl use a couple inches shorter than cute we're gonna get that piece of paper and then we're gonna get some good jobs and and then we're gonna buy a three-bedroom house with two car garage we'll have three and a half kids it's not really like me you're here so you can become liberated so I'd like you to look up Terrence I am a human being nothing human can be alien to me I don't know but I just have to tell you a couple of things and at one point I was in Yugoslavia and I didn't France and I knew I was going to Yugoslavia so I reached out and found somebody to help me with Cyril Cluett because I wanted to have something to get into a country I didn't want to go there and pretend I couldn't speak I'll pretend they ought to know my language so I studied as several through it with a woman who taught me from French now her French was now all that smoking so the Lord knows what my several it sounds but anyway I learned enough I was able to mumble around and then a young couple invited me to a party some rubber coats and I said yes the American State Department which was underwriting largely the Opera and the singing and dancing and he told us no American can go beyond four black square blocks of the theatre four square square blocks of the hotel well yes but I didn't think I would ever go back in Yugoslavia and I was from samsara tour in San Francisco I mean and I'm black and six foot tall I mean wait a minute no I'm gonna go out here and see what's what so I said yes I would come to them to the party the people came is young couple in a pickup truck to about 20 people in the back they pulled me up we all stood up and there was one bottle of sugar bits and it passed them on and and they drove us out from the Belgrad out into the country and I my knees a little water in the liquor I thought oh lord have I gone too far this time we went all the way out and we came to a house it looked like a Charles Adams house with little Gorge boy Adam little Cupid's and fame beautiful boom so I walked in and there was a music on and it was messy it was Billie Holiday my lands so I went in I had a wonderful time I ate with them and we dranking and then a little old lady just when we were about ready to go she was may have been about four foot ten came out of a door she had on a robe homey and slippers on me they look just like the slippers my grandmother made for herself and a roll of film and she spoke to everybody and all these people spoke to her then she looked over in the corner and saw me and screaming man first came run oh please don't please forgive her she's ignorant please forgive her she's never to answered listen if I have lived to be 90 with my people and never saw a white person and one shoulder I would be lucky not to faint so I just sat there and she was really frightened and I spoke to her in several throat as it good evening mother I'm happy to be in your home hello mother you have a beautiful home your children are very good thank you very much for allowing me to be in your own my my several court was absolutely this privately but I continued and that's it yes mother the food is very good very good and she kept inching and said won't you sit beside me mother she said to censor it didn't come off she pulled my hair didn't come out she shouted bringing food so her great-granddaughter said no she's out as in no it's okay said took a bite and she watched me Chilly then she said bring drink now this F this is why you must learn to read I had read that the proper way to drink slivovitz well there'd be a little bowl of a per time our our peach our apple confit to preserve useful in a tiny spoon does it take a bite of that go down with this little bit then another back that's not what we did in the truck but that's what I did and she saw me and she's a good girl Oh my host was so glad so thankful to me so uh we were getting ready to go when the door open again and the man came out older than she and with osteoporosis so he was old Benham and when he didn't look over in the corner to where I was I knew she was playing a joke on him so he went out oh speaking to everybody and then she looked over and saw me and screamed she said don't be stupid that's a good girl he found this way I said father I said the same things to him I'd said to his wife and then he said bring food as it bring drink to he touched me it didn't come on he asked me listen he asked me who was your grandfather hmm my grandfather told him he has who was your great-grandfather who was his father so I've told him my great-grandfather had been a slave in Tipper Mississippi he asked me what was his name I told him Thomas Bailey Johnson is history later he said I knew him he said he lived on the other side of the mountain he was a farmer he was a good farmer but his father was better than a knife what would make this man who had barely even gone into Bair's line as a thread it was a farmer what would makes him he see me and say this is a regular person he'd never seen a black person before in his life why because I had a little of his language and because I respect myself and respected him and I didn't feel offended because he had never seen me before I accept that I am a human being and nothing human can be alien to me and because of that hmm I wanted to read you so many points but okay I'm gonna beat you this one I'll tell you one little whether or not this one about just to make you laugh cuz I love people who lie I never trust people who don't laugh which I'm sure and act as if they put airplane glue on the back of their hand and stuck on to that for it boring is here I think if you're serious you came here to make a difference so you laugh as much as possible because everything would give you reason to bemoan your heart at state I mean the newspaper don't pick up the telephone people didn't telephone and say oh hey good morning and you listening to yes well our pickup internal intelligent turned it on everything so when you can use it now now do I add trust people who don't care for themselves and say I love you and they know you may want something but you know you don't love know that there's an African team which is be careful when a naked person offers you a shirt some years ago I went into a health food diner I was I was a smoker I'm not proud of that but I was a smoker and proud to say I'm happy to say I'm over 20 years free of nicotine and I will say this for you I pray for you any of you who has smoked our is smoking now I hope you'll stumble and I hope you live long enough to say I'm 20 years free of nicotine I mean it is a killer and a part of my problem with my knees is that my respiratory my lungs are so bad that I can't even have it in operation which will 'take me deep enough but my needs to be repaired you see please think about it and as soon as possible stop and as long as you can remain stopped do so ok but I was smoking then so here is this the health will down I went into this health food diner Twitter the 20 years ago 22 or 23 years ago and I wanted some rice and vegetables as one does sometimes you know I wasn't a vegetarian but I wanted and so I went in and I ordered it and the woman walked away and I reached into my purse and got out a package of unopened cigarettes and this one was back in seconds she said how dare you that is so nasty that is so filthy filthy good oh you dirty dirty that's a week miss me careful yourself she looked like she was winding yourself up to snap me on something I said I'm not the one you she said it is such a nasty thing I said mister if you didn't want people to smooth why don't you put some signs up she said we thought anyone who come into helpful sarsen maybe everyone else the manga that was over 20 years ago and very few people really knew it and so then I worked so hard to pry myself loose from my illiteracy I like to try all the time to see if I can read no smoke nothing I said would make her crack her face she would laugh alone the money she said you've endangered everybody in this mind I hadn't even pulled that little pieces and and the people I looked after these people just started coming here didn't it she said no these are regulars they've been coming for years this is the way the people look I said I wouldn't tell him I'm not getting any better than that what now I have to tell you that the American meat packers Association didn't pay me a penny but they did publish 200,000 copies of this of this poem ma'am no sprouted wheat hmmm and soya shoots and Brussels in a cake carrot straw and spinach wrong today I need a steak thick brown rice and rice peel and mushrooms cream don't toast turnips mashed and parsnips ash and dreaming of a roast helpful folks around the world are finding stris zeal they look for him in seafood till I count on breaded veal no smoking signs wrong mustard greens zucchini by the tongue uncooked kale and bodies free you are sure to make me run two loins of pork and chicken thighs and standing rib so prime pork chops brown and fresh ground round I crave them all the time IRA stews and boiled clumpy and hot those by the scores or any place that saves us face for smoking carnival hmm I want you to invite me again and thank you I do appreciate them um all of those years ago after I've written the inaugural poem for mr. mr. Clinton at the United Nations personnel people wrote to me and telephoned me and asked if I would rather at Boeing for for all of us for the world and let I come to San Francisco and deliver the toy well done this well I was overwhelmed because in 1945 when United Nations was being founded in San Francisco at a 16 years old I was pregnant unmarried and about to graduate high school sis for tall and black even then and I had read that simultaneous simultaneous translators were being paid the unheard of amount a hundred and fifty dollars a week to work at United Nations there have been statements in the San Francisco Chronicle the examiner and the called bulletin and I would go down and watch the people going into the building United Nations bill I've watched miss ed mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt with her friend the black educator dr. Mary McLeod Bethune I had watched the people from India France although it's exotic places and I would think you know if I was on blank and six foot tall and 16 and pregnant and unmarried and uneducated I could go into the that building folks imagine when I was asked me Maya Angelou 50 years later to go into that building and deliver a poem to the world to the heads of state of the world the Kami singing them I told you about that little village in Arkansas I told you got being waived and being a mute see now how could I have made it without rainbows in my clouds you see some white ones some black pants some Asians spanish-speaking see some fat ones something was trillion plain see that's what you are and that's who I am that's what we can do to each other for each other and for ourselves this is really in truth who we are we shine so far beyond what we think are our limits listen so here is this point I'm going to give it to dr. Hargrove dr. purse and asset you put it on your website and I'll ask dr. members to put it have it put on the website and it's available to you if you think of me please think of this going we this people on a small and lonely planet traveling through casual space pastor loose stars across the way of indifferent sons to a destination where all signs tell us it is possible and imperative that we learn a brave and startling truth and when we come to it to the day of peacemaking when we release our fingers from fists of hostility when the curtain falls on the minstrel show eight and phases suited with scorner scrubbed clean when battlefields and Coliseum no longer rake our particular sons and daughters up from the bruised and bloody grass to lay them in identical clocks in foreign soil when the rapacious storming of the churches the screaming rapid in the temples of ceased when we come to it when we let their rifles fall from our shoulders and our children can dress their dogs in flags of truce when landmine to death have been removed and our agent can walk into their evenings of peace when religious ritual is not perfumed by the incense of burning flesh and childhood dreams and not kicked awake by nightmares of sexual abuse when we come to it then we will confess there not the pyramids with their stones set in mysterious perfection nah the gardens of babylon hanging as eternal beauty in our collective memory not the Grand Canyon kindled into delicious colour by Western sunsets nor the Danube flowing it's blue soul into Europe not the sacred peak of Mount Fuji stretching to the Rising Sun neither father Amazon our mother Mississippi who without favor nurture all creatures on their Shores and in their Devas those are not the only wonders of the world when we come to it we this people on this minuscule globe who reach daily for the blade bombed the dagger yet who petition in the dark for tokens of peace we this people on this mote of matter in whose mouths of had cankerous words which threaten our very existence yet out of those same mouths can come songs of such exquisite sweetness that the heart falters in its labor and the body is quieted into all we this people on this small and drifting planet whose hands can strike with such abandon then in a twinkling knife is sacked from the living yet those same hands can touch with such healing irresistible tenderness that the halt a neck is happy to bow and the crowd back is glad to bend out of such chaos of such contradiction we finally need the devil's nor Divine's when we come to it we this people created on this earth on this earth have the power to fashion for this earth a climate where every man and every woman can live freely without sanctimonious piety without crippling fear when we come to it we must confess that we are the possible we are the true wonder of this world that is when when it's not like the Sun when there shine anymore when we say yes I will be a rainbow in the class you

Channel: The Evergreen State College

Views: 555,301

Rating: 4.8235683 out of 5

Keywords: Evergreen, The Evergreen State College, TESC, Maya Angelou (Author), Rainbow In The Cloud: The Wisdom And Spirit Of Maya Angelou

Id: oXeCtaWXMH8

Length: 85min 17sec (5117 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 02 2015