I make writing as much a part of my life as I do eating or listening to music.
Maya Angelou, 1999[98]
I also wear a hat or a very tightly pulled head tie when I write. I suppose I hope by doing that I will keep my brains from seeping out of my scalp and running in great gray blobs down my neck, into my ears, and over my face.
Maya Angelou, 1984[99]
Nothing so frightens me as writing, but nothing so satisfies me. It's like a swimmer in the [English] Channel: you face the stingrays and waves and cold and grease, and finally you reach the other shore, and you put your foot on the ground—Aaaahhhh!
Maya Angelou, 1989[100]
Evidence suggests that Angelou was partially descended from the Mende people of West Africa.[101][note 13] In 2008, a DNA test revealed that among all of her African ancestors, 45 percent were from the Congo-Angola region and 55 percent were from West Africa.[103] A 2008 PBS documentary found that Angelou's maternal great-grandmother, Mary Lee, who had been emancipated after the Civil War, became pregnant by her white former owner, John Savin. Savin forced Lee to sign a false statement accusing another man of being the father of her child. After Savin was indicted for forcing Lee to commit perjury, and despite the discovery that Savin was the father, a jury found him not guilty. Lee was sent to the Clinton County poorhouse in Missouri with her daughter, Marguerite Baxter, who became Angelou's grandmother. Angelou described Lee as "that poor little black girl, physically and mentally bruised."[104]
The details of Angelou's life described in her seven autobiographies and in numerous interviews, speeches, and articles tended to be inconsistent. Critic Mary Jane Lupton has explained that when Angelou spoke about her life, she did so eloquently, but informally, and "with no time chart in front of her."[105] For example, she was married at least twice, but never clarified the number of times she had been married, "for fear of sounding frivolous."[77] According to her autobiographies and to Gillespie, she married Tosh Angelos in 1951, and Paul du Feu in 1974, and began her relationship with Vusumzi Make in 1961, but never formally married him. Angelou held many jobs, including some in the sex trade working as a prostitute and madam for lesbians, and describes so in her second autobiography, Gather Together in My Name. In a 1995 interview, Angelou said:
I wrote about my experiences because I thought too many people tell young folks, "I never did anything wrong. Who, Moi? – never I. I have no skeletons in my closet. In fact, I have no closet." They lie like that and then young people find themselves in situations and they think, "Damn I must be a pretty bad guy. My mom or dad never did anything wrong." They can't forgive themselves and go on with their lives.[106]
Angelou had one son, Guy, whose birth she described in her first autobiography; one grandson, two great-grandchildren,[107] and, according to Gillespie, a large group of friends and extended family.[note 14] Angelou's mother Vivian Baxter died in 1991 and her brother Bailey Johnson Jr., died in 2000 after a series of strokes; both were important figures in her life and her books.[108][note 15] In 1981, the mother of her grandson disappeared with him; finding him took four years.[109][note 16]
Angelou did not earn a university degree, but according to Gillespie it was Angelou's preference to be called "Dr. Angelou" by people outside of her family and close friends. She owned two homes in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and a "lordly brownstone"[15] in Harlem, which was purchased in 2004[111] and was full of her "growing library"[112] of books she collected throughout her life, artwork collected over the span of many decades, and well-stocked kitchens. The Guardian writer Gary Younge reported that in Angelou's Harlem home were several African wall hangings and her collection of paintings, including ones of several jazz trumpeters, a watercolor of Rosa Parks, and a Faith Ringgold work entitled "Maya's Quilt Of Life".[15]
According to Gillespie, she hosted several celebrations per year at her main residence in Winston-Salem; "her skill in the kitchen is the stuff of legend—from haute cuisine to down-home comfort food".[78] The Winston-Salem Journal stated: "Securing an invitation to one of Angelou's Thanksgiving dinners, Christmas tree decorating parties or birthday parties was among the most coveted invitations in town."[72] The New York Times, describing Angelou's residence history in New York City, stated that she regularly hosted elaborate New Year's Day parties.[111] She combined her cooking and writing skills in her 2004 book Hallelujah! The Welcome Table, which featured 73 recipes, many of which she learned from her grandmother and mother, accompanied by 28 vignettes.[113] She followed up in 2010 with her second cookbook, Great Food, All Day Long: Cook Splendidly, Eat Smart, which focused on weight loss and portion control.[114]
Beginning with I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Angelou used the same "writing ritual"[21] for many years. She would wake early in the morning and check into a hotel room, where the staff was instructed to remove any pictures from the walls. She would write on legal pads while lying on the bed, with only a bottle of sherry, a deck of cards to play solitaire, Roget's Thesaurus, and the Bible, and would leave by the early afternoon. She would average 10–12 pages of written material a day, which she edited down to three or four pages in the evening.[115][note 17][117] She went through this process to "enchant" herself, and as she said in a 1989 interview with the British Broadcasting Corporation, "relive the agony, the anguish, the Sturm und Drang".[118] She placed herself back in the time she wrote about, even traumatic experiences such as her rape in Caged Bird, to "tell the human truth"[118] about her life. She was quoted as saying: "The way I deal with any pain is to admit it – let it come."[119] Angelou stated that she played cards to get to that place of enchantment and to access her memories more effectively. She said, "It may take an hour to get into it, but once I'm in it—ha! It's so delicious!"[118] She did not find the process cathartic; rather, she found relief in "telling the truth".[118]
In 2009, the gossip website TMZ erroneously reported that Angelou had been hospitalized in Los Angeles when she was alive and well in St. Louis, which resulted in rumors of her death and, according to Angelou, concern among her friends and family worldwide.[15]
