The Distinguished Annie Clark Tanner
Lecture
16th-annual Families Alive Conference
Weber State University
May 8, 1997
Dr. Maya Angelou
When it looked like the sun wasn't going to 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 water, she
would know. But there are no palm trees on the street, and dishwater gives
back no images. Uh-uh.
Still, when it looked like the sun wasn't going to shine anymore, God put a
rainbow in the clouds.
Once arriving in old Baltimore, hate-filled, my heart was filled with glee. I
saw a Baltimorean keep looking straight at me. Now, I was eight and very
small, and she was no whit bigger. And so I smiled, but she stuck out her
tongue and called me nigger.
She called me nigger. I saw the whole of Baltimore from May until
December, and of all the things that happened there that's all that I
remember.
Still, when it looked like the sun wasn't going to shine anymore, God put a
rainbow in the clouds.
Ms. Rosie, when I see you -- you black, brown, beige, red, yellow, pink, white
women -- when I see you, Ms. Rosie, sitting, waiting for your man like last
week's groceries; when I see you, Ms. Rosie, in your old man's 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, Ms. Rosie; when I see you through your
devotion, through your tenderness, your love, your mercy, I stand up, and I
realize when it looked like the sun wasn't going to shine anymore, you and
you and you and you became a rainbow in the clouds.
It is such a delight to be here. And I asked the press, the different media
people, earlier this evening, and I now throw myself on your mercy, would
you, please, pray for me. This is the first time in well over 20 years I've had
difficulty with my voice. I have come to say something, and I'm not leaving
until I say it. So send me your best thoughts.
That's the song which I was unable to sing, a 1970s song, "When it Looked
Like the Sun Wasn't Going to Shine Anymore, God Put a Rainbow in the
Clouds."
That, of course, comes from a statement from Genesis, which informed us
that rain had persisted so unrelentingly that people were afraid it would
never cease, and so God put a rainbow in the sky. However, a lyricist,
black lyricist, in the 19th century -- I think it was a woman -- wrote "God
Put the Rainbow in the Clouds."
We know that rainbows, stars, all sorts of illuminations, comets and suns,
are always in the firmament. But clouds get so low and dark that you can't
see the illumination. But if God put the rainbows right in the clouds
themselves, each one of us in the direst and dullest and most dreaded and
dreary moments can see a possibility of hope.
I believe that this particular conference is a rainbow in the clouds. I know
that there are children who were mentioned and enumerated earlier this
evening, those who, I'm sorry to say, are victims of homicide, those who
are victims of suicide, those who are victims who find themselves so
unlovable, unworthy that they are unable to see anyone who looks like
themselves as worthy.
I know that those people, those our children, need desperately to have
rainbows in their clouds not just in the sky.
So it is a great blessing to me that you've asked me to come this evening. I
have the challenge of making myself clear. But I'm an American, and if I
can't be good I will be long. That's it. The issue which faces us all the time,
it seems to me, is not should we do good, but there's a question which we
must ask ourselves, which is: How good do we have to be?
Now, my belief is as long as the question is asked, our answer is always:
We're not good enough yet.
How good do we have to be? To whom are we responsible? Where do our
responsibilities end?
In fact, am I responsible -- I'm black, many of you may not have noticed.
I'm telling you just in case -- and female and 6 feet tall, and I'm pressing
on to being 70 -- pressing.
So am I really responsible for 6-foot-tall black ladies of a certain age? Or
am I really responsible to this girl here, this pretty girl who just read that
wonderful statement to me? Am I responsible to this president of the
institution of higher education, white male? Am I really responsible for an
Asian man who I didn't get a chance to meet but who walked down the hall
who I just saw?
I think so. I think that when I stand up, I must know that I'm standing up
for everybody. And when each of you stands up, I think you have to know
you stand up for everybody. And, in fact, you are the rainbow in the
clouds.
People whose names you will never know, faces you have not really looked
at, personalities you have no idea of, are dependent upon you.
It is important to know that every person in this building has already been
paid for, every person. And I'm not speaking of the religious and sacred
paying for.
But every one of us, whether their ancestors came from Ireland or
Germany in the 1840s and 1850s, after those two areas had been assaulted
by the potato blight, or if their ancestors came from Eastern Europe,
trying to escape the problems, the little and large murders, arriving at Ellis
Island, having their names changed to something utterly unpronounceable,
or if their ancestors came from Scandinavia or Malta or Italy or South
America or Mexico, trying to find a place that would hold all of the people,
all the faces, all the Adams and Eves, and their countless generations, or if
their ancestors came from Asia in the 1850s to build the railroads, to build
the country, unable legally to bring their mates for eight decades, or if
their ancestors came from Africa unwillingly, bound and tied and lashed,
put in the filthy hatches of slave ships back-to-belly, lying in each other's
excrement and urine and menstrual flow, they have paid for each of us
already.
It is wonderful to think about it, to internalize that piece of information, to
realize I've been paid for by people who had no chance of knowing what
my name would be. Somehow they paid for me, or I wouldn't be here in
Ogden, Utah; I wouldn't be here, I wouldn't be able to stand erect and call
my name out had they not paid for me.
So obviously the responsibility I have is to prepare myself to pay for
someone else who has just come or who is yet to come. It is a wonderful
thing. It is liberating. It frees one to think "My goodness, I hadn't thought
about that, I've been paid for."
Sometimes when we hear the terrible news, the horrible data about our
children, we sometimes feel so embarrassed we forget who we really are,
we forget how much we do.
I think it's important to remember how much we do, not so that we can
stop, but so that we can be encouraged to do more. It is wonderful to look
at what we do. It is imperative that we see what we give to the Salvation
Army and the Red Cross and the American Cancer Association and the
American Heart Society. It is imperative that we see what we give to the
NAACP and the Urban League.
We must see these things so that we can say "You know, we're not too
bad." However, our work is cut out for us.
"We give to the American Jewish Society. You realize how much we
give?"
And there are people who will be standing outside during Christmas with
their bells and fake beards, and we're embarrassed if we don't stop and
give something. It is in our nature to give.
All I'm saying is: We take being rainbows in the clouds naturally. And so a
conference which is meant to extol the lives, the healthy lives of our
children is natural to us. It is no surprise to me to look out and see lots of
people, real nice, that not only have they already been paid for but that
they and I have the responsibility of paying for those who are yet to come,
who are here and looking to us.
I'm going to use African American poetry tonight. I don't have to, it's not
in my contract. I could recite Alexander Pope or John Dunne, for that
matter. But I want to show you some of the beauty of African American
poetry. It's so little known, so rarely taught.
I even suggest here in this institution of higher education that there are few
professors who teach African American poetry. Alas. Alas. Rue. Too bad. I
would remind you that the first Africans were brought to this country, or
what was to become this country, in 1619. Now, I don't mean to cast
aspersions on my white brothers and sisters in the audience or my white
brothers and sisters up here on the platform or my white nephews and
nieces; 1619, however, was one year before the Mayflower docked.
We have undergone experiences too bizarre to have been included in Alex
Haley's book phenomenon "Roots" or in the television phenomenon
"Roots" in which I played Kunta Kinte's grandmother. Too bizarre. Yet,
here we are still here, miraculously here, still the last hired and the first
fired, still the butts of many white liberals' jokes, but still here. Upwards of
50 million, and that's a conservative estimate.
I know people that swear there are more than 50 million black people in
the Baptist church. And there are only three black atheists in the whole
world.
I suggest that in the poetry there is the answer of how a people stay alive,
how people stay alive and how lots of people stay alive.
Now, before I really look at the poetry, I would just tell you some of the -well, it's really more folk poetry -- sort of folk poetry of the 19th century.
When some nonblack people write about black people and romance,
especially romantic love, because they're so erroneously informed they
would have us believe that white people make love and black, brown,
beige, red and yellow people just .... not only often, frequently, but always
successfully. But in the poetry, you can see how people stay alive, what
becomes their rainbow in the clouds.
There is a line in a 1950 folk song in which a black man spoke of the
woman he loved. He said: The woman I love is fat and chocolate to the
bone, and every time she shakes some skinny woman loses her home.
In the course of staying alive, I always love to hear people laugh. I never
trust people who don't laugh or who act as if they put airplane glue on the
back of their hands and stuck them to their forehead. No. No. They have
not come to stay and to make a difference and to be a rainbow in
somebody's cloud. So I like to hear people laugh.
I also like people who love themselves. I don't trust people who don't love
themselves and tell me "I love you." No. If they don't love themselves, not,
uh-uh. There is an African saying which is: Be careful when a naked
person offers you a shirt.
I love to look in the poetry and see how, indeed, people have stayed alive,
how they have found a rainbow in the clouds, right in the clouds. So in
dramatic poetry, well, let's see, I would look at Ms. Georgia Douglas
Johnson, a 19th century black lady poet, who wrote:
I want to die while you love me, while yet you hold me,while laughter lies
upon my lips and lights are in my hair. Yeah. I want to die while you love me.
Who would care to live if love had nothing more to give. I want to die while
you love me and bear to that still bed your kisses, turbulent, unskinned, to
warm me while I'm dead.
Georgia Douglas Johnson.
James Weldon Johnson wrote a poem about a black man loving his son.
This is very important especially in this conference because, I'm sorry to
say, a number of young black men are informed that they do not love their
children. People are often no stronger than the propaganda which is
bruited about them, and so they believe it, and then they work and act
upon that ignorance.
This is a poem written in 1892 which lets us see a black man talking to his
son.
Little brown baby with sparkling eyes, come to your papa, sit on his knee.
What you been doing son? Look at that baby, you as dirty as me. Look at
those hands, that's molasses, I bet. Come here around, clean off his hand.
Boy, the bees are going to get you and eat you up, yeah, being so sticky and
sweet. Goodness, land.
Little brown baby with sparkling eyes, who's Papa's child. Who is it never
once that he tries to be cross or he lose that smile? Where did he get those
teeth? But you're a scamp. Where did the dimples come from in your cheek?
No, Papa don't know you. I believe you're a tramp.
Papa, there is some straggler trying to get in. We don't want no straggler
trying to get in. Let's throw him away to the great boogerman. I know he's
hanging around here somewhere.
Boogerman, Boogerman, come in the door. Here is a little boy you can have
to eat. Momma and Papa don't want him no more. Just gobble him up from
his head to his -I knew that would make you hug me up close.
You go away old Boogerman, you can't have this boy. He ain't no straggler,
no stranger, of course, he's Papa's darling and sweetheart and joy.
Come to your Papa, Baby, go to your rest, I wish you could always know ease
and clear skies. I wish you could stay just a baby on my breast, you little
brown baby with sparkling eyes.
In the course of preparing one's self to be a rainbow in the clouds, one
needs to have everything going for them, everything, because the person
who will come, who is in need of you, will come asking for things you
didn't even know about.
I grew up in a little town in Arkansas. I was sent from California when I
was three years old to a little village in Arkansas, much smaller than this
bank of seats. I stayed with Momma -- I want to come back to that.
But I stayed with Momma until I was seven, and then I was picked up and
taken to St. Louis to my mother's people. I'm sorry to say my mother's
boyfriend raped me. I was so afraid to tell the name of the violator that I
just wouldn't -- I couldn't. The man said he would kill my brother, who
was my black kingdom come.
My brother, who is a small person, he's older than I, and even now he is
five foot four and a half, and I'm six foot. But then he was nine, and he was
a very small person. He said I had to tell him the name of the rapist.
I said "I can't. He will kill you."
My brother said "I won't let him."
So I told him, of course.
The man was put in jail and stayed in jail one day, one night and was
released. And about three days later, my brother and I were on the floor of
my maternal grandmother's living room. We were playing a game we
called Mo-no-po-ly -- because we never heard it pronounced -- when the
police came in. The police came in and informed my grandmother, my
maternal grandmother, in very large tones that the man had been found
dead and it seemed he had been kicked to death.
I was so traumatized by that statement that I stopped speaking. I thought
my voice killed the man. And so I refused to speak. I thought if I spoke, my
voice might just go out and kill people, the lady in the green dress, the man
in the brown shoes, the girl in the white skirt. So I stopped speaking.
My maternal family, they were in St. Louis. They were so erudite, so
sophisticated, so educated. They tried their best to woo me away from my
mutism, but I refused.
And after three months, I'm sure they got weary, became weary of this
sullen, silent child who continued to remind them of this heinous crime,
they sent me back to Stamps, Arkansas, to Momma, this little village.
My maternal grandmother who, when she died, was over six foot tall, this
is Momma (indicating). We all know Momma. She's Irish, she's Japanese,
she's Jewish.
I went back to Momma, and Momma used to braid my hair. My hair was
huge and very curly. And so Momma would sit me down on the floor the
way old ladies still braid black girls' hair in the South. Momma would sit
on the chair. Both of us would look out. I would put my elbows around
Momma's knees. Momma would bend her hand like that and put it behind
my neck so she wouldn't break my neck by accident. And she would say
"Sister, Momma don't care that you don't talk. Momma don't care that
these people say you must be an idiot or a moron. Sister, Momma don't
care. Sister, you know what? Momma know when you and the good Lord
get ready you going to be a preacher."
I used to sit there and think: This poor ignorant Momma.
Last Sunday I was asked -- I had done a number of not preachments, but
I've spoken a few places. Last Sunday at the Presidential Summit there
were four presidents and five first ladies and General Colin Powell. And
they asked if I would give the invocation. And I wondered: Why didn't
they get Reverend Billy Graham or Reverend Bob Schuler?
And they said "We want you."
And I thought about Momma, in Stamps, Arkansas, long dead. When it
looked like the sun wasn't going to shine anymore, God put a rainbow in
the clouds.
The truth is, each of us has the incredible ability, not just as members of
organizations, not just as members of families or people with positions
high and mighty, but each one of us has the chance to be a rainbow in
somebody's cloud. It's amazing.
Let me go back and tell you about Uncle Willie. I came at three to
Grandma and my Uncle Willie in this little, bitty town. Now, Uncle Willie
was crippled, his whole right side was paralyzed. Momma thought he was
crippled because he had fallen off a porch. Of course, I found out years
later he had some neurological malady. His left side was huge.
My grandmother owned the only black-owned store -- she and my uncle -in the town. So they needed me and my brother to work in the store. So
Momma taught me to read and write, and my Uncle Willie taught me to do
my times tables.
He used to grab me by my clothes and hold me in front of a potbelly stove,
and with a slur attendant to his condition, he'd say "Now, Sister, I want
you to do your foursies, do your sevensies, do your ninesies."
I learned my times tables so exquisitely even now, 60 years later, if I'm
awakened after an evening of copious libation I can be awakened at 3
o'clock in the morning and asked "Do your twelvsies." I've got my
twelvsies.
I was so sure that if I didn't learn somehow my uncle would manage to
hold me, open the potbelly stove, throw me in, close the door. Of course, I
found that he was so tenderhearted he wouldn't allow a spider or moth or
fly to be killed in the store.
My Uncle Willie died, and I went down to Arkansas to see about things. I
stopped in Little Rock and was met by one of America's great rainbows in
the clouds, the black lady who led the children into the high school in the
late fifties in Little Rock.
So she met me, and she said "Girl" -I didn't have to tell you she was black; right?
She said "Girl, I know you're staying overnight. There is somebody who is
dying to meet you. I want to bring him to your hotel."
I said "Okay."
She brought about 15 people to the hotel. But she brought this black man
who was really all right.
I said "How do you do?"
He said "I don't want to shake your hand. I want to hug you."
I said "I sure appreciate it."
He gave me a wonderful hug. He said "You're down here in Arkansas
because of Willie's dying."
I was stunned. My Uncle Willie was so ashamed of his condition, of his
paralysis, that he left Stamps twice willingly in his life. Once he went to
Hope, Arkansas, which was 30 miles away, and in the thirties he went out
to California to visit my dad.
Here up in Little Rock this erudite handsome black man in a three-piece
suit said you know, "The State of Arkansas has lost a great man, losing
Willie."
I said "Uncle Willie?"
He said "The United States has lost a great man, losing Willie."
I said "W. M. Johnson?"
He said "You know, in the twenties I was the only child of a blind mother.
Your Uncle Willie gave me a job in his store, paid me 10 cents a week,
taught me to do my times tables."
I asked him "How he would do it?"
He said "He used to grab me like this...."
He said "Because of him, I am who I am today." He said "I guess you want
to know who that is?"
I said "Yes, sir."
He said "I'm mayor of Little Rock, Arkansas, first black mayor in the
South."
Willie. Willie.
When I was growing up in that little village, the boys, as they were
euphemistically called, used to ride over to the black area, threaten people
and kill people, because they didn't agree with God's choice for the colors
of the people's skin.
And my brother and I would dig the potatoes and onions out of the bin,
help my Uncle Willie get down into the bin, because it was dangerous for a
black man to be out anywhere when the boys would ride. And we would
cover him with potatoes and onions, and we would look out the window at
the boys.
They didn't wear sheets, they didn't have to. My brother and I would look
out at the men, and all of them seemed to have big, what they called,
constitutions, big guns, that sat out, now
I know, like theatrical props. And we would watch them as if they were
mysterious creatures from another planet.
The next day, I went downstairs. The mayor said "I have someone to look
after you."
I went downstairs. There were eight of them. I started to laugh and to cry.
There they were looking after me. My Uncle Willie, dead, was looking
after me.
When it looked like the sun wasn't going to shine anymore, God put a
rainbow in the clouds.
I went to each one, and I shook each hand and gave him a big kiss right on
the chop. And I said "I thank you in the name of Uncle Willie. Thank
you."
The mayor said "Now when you get down to Louisville, you look up this
lawyer. He's a good old boy. He'll look after your property."
I expected an older, dignified black man, a lawyer. I went into an office,
and a young white man ran up.
He said "Ms. Angelou, I'm just delighted to see you." He said "The mayor
called me this morning, told me you were coming down here. He's the most
powerful black man I ever knew, more important than that he's a noble
man. Because of him I am who I am today."
I said "Let me sit down here."
He said "He caught onto me when I was 12 years old. I'm the only child of
a blind mother. He made me love to go to school and to learn. And, Dr.
Angelou, I'm now in the State legislature."
I looked at Willie, crippled, black male, in the lynching South, in the South
where lynching was the order of the day, or disorder of the day. I have no
idea the range of his influence. No idea. But I do know that when it looked
like the sun wasn't going to shine anymore, God put a rainbow in the
clouds. I know that.
So I wrote a song which is sung by Ms. Roberta Flack. I wrote it for you. I
wrote it for all of us. I wrote it for Weber. I wrote it for the men and
women who planned this conference and the men and women who support
the conference. I wrote it for all of the children who are in need of us.
I can't sing it like Ms. Flack sings it. I can't hardly sing it as I sing it. But
here is the lyric.
Willie was a man without shame. Hardly anybody knew his name. Crippled
and limping and always walking lame, he said but I keep on moving, I'm
moving just the same.
Solitude was the climate in his head. Emptiness was the partner in his bed.
Pain echoed in the steps of his tread. But he said I keep on following where
the leaders led.
I may cry and I will die, but my spirit is the soul of every spring. Watch for
me, and you will see that I'm present in the songs that children sing.
People called him Uncle, Boy and Hey, said you can't live through this
another day, and then they waited to hear what he would say. He said I'm
living in the games that children play.
You may enter my sleep, people my dreams, threaten my early morning's
ease, but I keep coming, following, laughing and crying, sure as a summer
breeze.
Wait for me, watch for me, my spirit is the surge of open seas. Call me, wait
for me, I'm the rustle in the autumn leaves.
When the sun rises, I am the time, when the children live and laugh and
learn and love, I am the rhyme.
Look for me, just call me a rainbow in the clouds.
I must do one more poem because I don't think you've laughed enough.
I told you I don't trust people who act that way (indicating). Yet some
years ago Arsenio Hall telephoned me and asked if I would come onto his
program.
I said "I thank you, Mr. Hall, but --"
He said "Oh, Doctor, no, ma'am. Don't -- Oh, no, ma'am. I'm just a
commoner."
I said "Please, I don't know if I would have that much in common with
your constituents."
But he was so persuasive, so I went on the program. And I enjoyed myself
so much I went back eight times.
But the first time I did a piece called "Seven Women's Blessed Assurance,"
and I enjoyed it. And then I stayed around Los Angeles a little while, and
then I flew from Los Angeles to Geneva, Switzerland, took a train over to
another city and took the funicular up the side of the Alps to the foot of the
Matterhorn, and there I gave a three-and-a-half-hour speech in French,
English and Spanish, thank you. I was so full of (indicating). I mean, I was
full of it.
I took the funicular back after about six days, and over to Geneva I went.
And I was standing in the Geneva airport with an umbrella, my purse over
my shoulder and a briefcase when a young white man came up to me. He
said "Dr. Angelou?"
I said "Yes."
He said "Ms. Angelou."
I said "Oh."
He said "It's hard to believe, it's Ms. Angelou. I was in the audience at
Arsenio Hall the night you did 'Seven Women's Blessed Assurance.'"
I said then, and I say now, "Woo-woo-woo." (indicating).
Nothing to do with it but to laugh. I laughed. Then I straightened up my
umbrella that was way over there and the young man was gone.
And all those Swiss were looking at me like (indicating.)
And here is this piece which I wrote to make my ownself laugh.
The first woman said One thing about me, I'm little and low, I find me a man
wherever I go.
The second woman said They call me string bean 'cause I'm so tall, men see
me, they ready to fall.
The third woman said I'm fat as butter and sweet as cake, men start to
tremble every time I shake.
The fourth woman said I'm young as morning and fresh as dew, everybody
loves me, and so do you.
The fifth woman said I'm little and lean, sweet to the bone, they like to pick
me up and carry me home.
The sixth woman said When I passed forty, I dropped pretense 'cause men
like women who got some sense.
But the seventh woman is my favorite, for obvious reasons. The seventh
woman said fifty-five is perfect, so is fifty-nine, 'cause every man needs to
rest sometime.
Speech taken from website:
http://departments.weber.edu/chfam/FamiliesAlive/AngelouSpeech.html