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A Song Flung Up To Heaven
Reviewed by Vanessa Calvin
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Born Marguerite Johnson, April 4, 1928
in St. Louis, Missouri to Bailey Johnson, a naval cook, and Vivian
Baxter, a nightclub performer and the owner of a large rooming
house, Maya Angelou is a nationally acclaimed artist and humanitarian.
Angelou's credits include writer, poet, playwright, director,
producer, performance artist, educator, Horatio Alger and Grammy
Award winner, and mother. Angelou has one child, Guy Johnson,
the author of the novel Standing At the Scratch Line.
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- Maya Angelou recently completed
the sixth volume of her autobiography, A Song Flung Up to Heaven,
a collaboration of memoirs bearing first-hand, personal accounts
of her experiences with racism. The story sets in 1964. Angelou,
in her late 30's, returns to the United States from a four-year
voyage to Ghana, Africa, to work with Malcolm X to form the African
American Unity Organization. As Angelou arrives in the U.S.,
she decides to visit her family before working with Malcolm.
However, shortly after her arrival, Malcolm X is assassinated.
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- The assassination of Malcolm
X dramatically affects Angelou. She expresses her emotion in
this passage: "If a group of racists had waylaid Malcolm,
killed him in the dark, I might have accepted his death easily.
But he was killed by black people as he spoke to black people
about a better future for black people and in the presence of
his family." Angelou is also shaken by the fact that she
could have witnessed the death of Malcolm X. "Angelou revisits
the ballroom rented for the fundraiser for Malcolm X after his
assassination. She begins to question, if she had stayed in New
York upon returning from Ghana, would she had been sitting with
Betty Shabazz and her children? Would she have heard the final
words of Malcolm X? Would she have seen the killers faces and
had them etched in her mind eternally?"
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- As a result of the difficulty
Angelou experienced dealing with the murders of Malcolm X and
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., she succumbs to a period of withdrawal
and isolation. James Baldwin, an American writer noted for his
sharp essays on the Civil-Rights struggle in the United States,
forces Angelou out of this dismal period in her life. Angelou
befriended Baldwin in Paris in the 1950's while he was writing
and she was the principal dancer in the opera "Porgy and
Bess." Baldwin erupts as a positive force in Angelou's life.
Angelou speaks affectionately of James Baldwin's eloquence. She
professes, "He spoke to and for the people as if they were
his family and they loved him. James Baldwin would spur up the
audience." Angelou and Baldwin spent a great period of time
together in 1960 while she lived in New York, and Baldwin ultimately
inspired her novel I Know Why the Cage Bird Sings.
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- In A Song Flung Up to Heaven,
Angelou also discusses the hardships associated with single motherhood,
raising a teenager, and traveling from city to city. During these
journeys, the reader feels as if he or she is a part of Angelou's
personal, unique experiences. Angelou describes her experience
working as an Aloha Club singer in Hawaii. She states "Listening
to Della Reese, I knew I would never call myself a singer again,
and that I was going to give up Hawaii and my job at the Encore.
When I thanked Della Reese, I did not mention exactly what she
had done for me. I should have said, 'You've changed my life'
or 'Your singing made the crooked way straight and the rough
road smooth'. All I said was, 'I needed your music, and thank
you for giving it so generously.'" The next day, Maya called
her mother in San Francisco to tell her she was moving to Los
Angeles. The time had come to return to the main land, to get
a job - to re-enter real life. Angelou's story compels the reader
to become an active part of her testimony.
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- Angelou's autobiography, A Song
Flung Up to Heaven, is a reflection of Angelou's other literary
works. It broadcasts her thoughts and views in such a way that
the reader has no choice but to feel her strong will and determination.
This autobiography exemplifies Maya Angelou's ability to express
what she feels in a manner that not only touches, but also encompasses
the reader. Similar to Angelou's other works, A Song Flung Up
to Heaven, is spoken from the heart of a literary angel in a
language that can touch the depths of any readers soul.
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