writing_womans_lives_symposium_paper_book_v2

for the job, Angelou is initially accepting the defeat by treating the case impersonally and following
the older generation's model of protest:
The miserable little encounter had nothing to do with me, the me of me, anymore than
it had to do with that silly clerk. The incident was a recurring dream, concocted years
before by stupid whites and it eternally came back to us all. 22
However, the transformation from submissive acceptance to active resistance is finalized when
Angelou has a racist encounter with a conductor. Angelou realizes that this is not a rejection based
on merit but a racial one: "The whole charade we had played out in that crummy waiting room had
directly to do with me, Black, and her, white." 23 Confronted with racial discrimination in the work
force, Angelou takes on the challenge and succeeds in gaining equal work opportunities by becoming
the first black streetcar conductor in San Francisco.
In conclusion, the political narrative of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings is an essential part of
understanding the overall narrative of the whole autobiography. Not only it is a record of the
collective experiences of African Americans but it also represents her perspective on the
controversial debate of the Civil Rights era on various models of protest. In her interview with
Claudia Tate, Angelou sums up the importance of the theme of protest in her works by stating:
"Protest is an inherent part of my work. You can't just not write about protest themes or not sing
about them. It's a part of life. If I don't agree with a part of life, then my work has to address it." 24
Keywords: African American autobiography, Political autobiography, Racial protest, Collective
identity
Sima Jalal Kamali
University of Sussex, Arts Building
School of History, Art History and Philosophy, Centre for American Studies
Notes
1
Henry Louis Gates Jr., introduction to Bearing Witness: Selections from African American Autobiography
in the Twentieth Century, ed. Henry Louis Gates Jr. (New York: Pantheon Books, 1991), 3.
2
Gates, introduction to Bearing Witness, 3.
3
Mary F. Brewer, "Politics and Life Writing," in Encyclopedia of Life Writing: Autobiographical and
Biographical Forms. ed. Margaretta Jolly, vol. 2 (London: Fitzroy Dearborn, 2001), 722.
4
Brewer, "Politics," 722.
5
Ibid.
6
Ibid.
7
Ibid.
8
Ibid.
9
Maya Angelou, interview by Carol Neubauer, "An Interview by Maya Angelou," The Massachusetts
Review 28, no. 2 (1987): 286, accessed November 3, 2011, http://www.jstor.org/stable/25089856.
10
Brewer, "Politics," 722.
11
Alice Walker, Anything We Loved can be Saved: a Writer's Activism, (London: Women's Press, 1997),
xxi.
12
Maria Lauret, Alice Walker, (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 2000), 194.
13
Maya Angelou, interview by Claudia Tate, "Maya Angelou," Conversations with Maya Angelou. ed.
Jeffery M. Elliot, (London: Virago, 1989), 151.
14
Manning Marable and Leith Mulling, ed. Let Nobody Turn us Around: Voices of Resistance, Reform,
and Renewal, (Lanham:Rowman an Littlefield Publishers, 2009), 219.
15
Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, 1969, Reprint (London: Virago, 2007), 51‐52.
16
Ibid., 118.
17
Ibid., 120.
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