Mom & Me & Mom

“Save for one horrific visit to St. Louis, we lived with my father’s mother, Grandmother Annie Henderson, and her other son, Uncle Willie, in Stamps until I was thirteen. The visit to St. Louis lasted only a short time but I was raped there and the rapist had been killed. I thought I had caused his death because I told his name to the family. Out of guilt, I stopped talking to everyone except Bailey. I decided that my voice was so powerful that it could kill people, but it could not harm my brother because we loved each other so much.”

This quote alludes to a seven-year-old Maya Angelou’s sexual assault and resulting trauma. While she blames herself for her rapist’s death, she also realizes the power of her own voice. She is able to survive the ordeal partially due to her brother, Bailey, but the threat of racial violence often renders them both silent.

“She made a funny face and against my will, I smiled. She kissed me on my lips and started to cry. ‘That’s the first time I have seen you smile. It is a beautiful smile. Mother’s beautiful daughter can smile.’ I was not used to being called beautiful. That day, I learned that I could be a giver simply by bringing a smile to another person.”

Angelou describes her first intimate moment with her mother. She initially remains restrained while living with her, but Vivian attempts to slowly overcome the trauma of her abandonment. Vivian is described as a strong woman who moves others with her innate power, her warmth.

“His eyes found Grandmother and his smile changed to a grin, and he waved to her. Then he saw Mother and his response broke my heart. Suddenly he was a lost little boy who had been found at last. […] He went to her as if hypnotized. She opened her arms and she clasped him into her embrace. I felt as if I had stopped breathing. My brother was gone, and he would never come back.”

This quote describes Bailey’s reunion with his mother. Being slightly older than Angelou at the time of Vivian’s abandonment, his reaction is different from hers. He longs for his mother and immediately attaches to her. Angelou remains distant from Vivian and fears that her and Bailey’s relationship has forever changed with the reunion. However, Bailey’s relationship with his mother changes in adulthood, as he ultimately fails to overcome his childhood trauma.

“‘I have learned that Maya doesn’t want to call me Mother. She has another name for me. It seems like I don’t fit her image of a mother.’ […] ‘She wants to call me “Lady.”’ She waited a second, then said, ‘And I like it. She said I’m beautiful and kind, so I resemble a true lady.’”

Overall, Vivian is understanding of her daughter’s emotions. Because Angelou cannot address her as “mother,” she accepts the title “Lady” and tries to approach her daughter on equal terms. With her honesty and openness, Vivian paves the way for reconciliation. Simultaneously, she accepts that she cannot fully conform to traditional expectations of motherhood.

“My father said to me, ‘So you’re Marguerite. You look like my mother. You got here all right? Look at you; you’re nearly tall as I am.’ His wife looked up at him but didn’t speak. I was not being complimented.”

Angelou describes her first meeting with her father. Contrary to her relationship with her mother, she is unable to reconcile with him. She briefly stays in her father’s household, which feels strange and hostile. Angelou’s father and his new wife do not try to connect with her—thus, their relationship does not evolve.

“The first day, when my uniform arrived and it fit me well, I felt like a woman. My mother, who had run a bath for me, awakened me and complimented me on my uniform. We got into her car and she drove to the beach. When I thanked her and said, ‘Go home and take care of yourself,’ she said, ‘I mean to take care of the both of us.’ For the first time I saw the pistol on the seat.”

Angelou’s first job reinforces her identity as an independent woman. Simultaneously, Vivian makes up for past mistakes by following her to work to ensure no one harms her—embodying a protective mother who knows the world’s dangers, especially when one is a Black woman.

“She said, ‘So, you got the job and I also got the job. You were conductorette and I was your security every day until dawn. What did you learn from this experience?’ I said, ‘I learned that you were probably the best protection I will ever have.’ She asked, ‘What did you learn about yourself?’ I said, ‘I learned I am not afraid to work, and that’s about all.’ She said, ‘No, you learned that you have power—power and determination. I love you and I am proud of you. With those two things, you can go anywhere and everywhere.’”

This quote reinforces the theme of Resilience and Forging a Black Female Identity. Vivian offers wisdom to Angelou, urging her to realize that despite racial, gendered, and class-based discrimination, she manages to accomplish personal goals. Her persistence earned her a job as a car conductor, making her the first Black woman in the profession.

“I had called Lady ‘Mother.’ I knew she had noticed but we never ever mentioned the incident. I was aware that after the birth of my son and the decision to move and get a place for just the two of us, I thought of Vivian Baxter as my mother. […] I realized that I had grown close to her and that she had liberated me. She liberated me from a society that would have had me think of myself as the lower of the low. She liberated me to life.’”

Angelou finally addresses Vivian as her mother after becoming a mother herself. Though Angelou initially hides her pregnancy, Vivian never instills shame. Instead, she frames motherhood as simply a part of life.

“Independence is a heady draft, and if you drink it in your youth, it can have the same effect on the brain as young wine does. It does not matter that its taste is not always appealing. It is addictive and with each drink you want more.”

Angelou lives on her own as a single mother. Despite struggling financially to support herself and her son, Guy, she enjoys independence. She gains a sense of freedom and self-determination that guides future decisions.

“My mother’s smile was beautiful and so welcoming to my eyes that I forgot that she had abandoned me again. She held me for a long hug and when we broke our embrace her face was wet with tears. She said, ‘Baby, please forgive me. I don’t care if you marry a donkey; I will never walk off and leave you alone again.’”

Angelou’s marriage to a white man, Tosh Angelos, causes a temporary rift between her and her mother. She reexperiences abandonment when Vivian moves away, but Vivian realizes her mistake. In this quote, Angelou manages to overcome past trauma by focusing on the present love between her and Vivian. From this point on, Vivian remains by her side.

“When I was fifteen years old, I received a scholarship to attend the California Labor School. I studied dance there and it gave me a pleasure I had never known.”

Art is an essential part of Angelou’s life, with dance making her feel free. Despite her financial struggles, she always strives to dance. However, while married, she is forced to limit her hobbies to take up the role of a housewife. Soon, married life feels oppressive.

“I have no friends. Tosh is jealous even of my friendship with Yvonne. He has stopped me from studying dance, he becomes angry if I stop at the record shop, and worst of all, I have to lie when I go to church.”

Angelou feels marriage left her bereft. She believed having a husband would offer her a feeling of home and a father for her son. However, she realizes she is losing her own identity. Tosh expects Angelou to be a housewife without considering her personal needs and desires—her dancing, friends, and faith. With her mother’s encouragement, she realizes she is unhappy in her marriage.

“After the separation we moved into a small two-bedroom apartment. My son cried himself to sleep so often and so piteously that I, too, wept alone in my bedroom. I reported our situation to my mother, who never reminded me that she had said it wouldn’t work out. ‘It is normal,’ she said. ‘And although it is painful, imagine if you had allowed Tosh to take the sense of your person away. Guy would have lost the person he needs the most, his mother.’”

To reclaim her identity and independence, Angelou decides to divorce Tosh. However, she struggles to handle the change, and her son is devastated to lose a father. Again, Vivian encourages Angelou: She stresses that a woman must not lose her own identity because of a man, as doing so hurts them and their child.

“When I reported the outcome to my mother, she was pleased. She said, ‘I am not surprised. You are going far in this world, baby, because you dare to risk everything.’”

This quote reinforces the theme of Resilience and Forging a Black Female Identity. Vivian recognizes and praises Angelou’s courage, again offering advice. She makes Angelou understand that she must never give up, even if she fails.

“I knew that if I missed Guy as much as I did, he must be missing me more. I was old enough to know that I would be seeing him soon, but I knew he had to be thinking sometimes that he would never see his mother again. The years I had spent in Arkansas without my mother made me know how lost a child feels when a parent is missing.”

Due to professional obligations, Angelou leaves her son, Guy, for the first time. The trauma of her mother’s abandonment resurfaces as guilt over her own ability as a mother. Though she describes her brother’s trauma as more acute, the quote shows she was equally impacted by Vivian’s abandonment and does not want to repeat her mistake.

“I opened the door of Room C and my hopes fell. There was a young white man behind a desk. […] How could this privileged young white man understand the heart of a black woman, who was sick with guilt because she left her little black son for others to raise?”

Angelou’s mental health crisis leads her to seek treatment at a psychiatric hospital. However, going to an institution exacerbates her helplessness. Her doctor is a white man whom she feels could never understand her struggles as a Black woman. Once again, social constraints impact Angelou’s psyche.

“From that encounter on, whether my days are stormy or sunny and if my nights are glorious or lonely, I maintain an attitude of gratitude. If pessimism insists on occupying my thoughts, I remember there is always tomorrow. Today I am blessed.”

Angelou manages to overcome her anxiety by realizing she is building a life with courage and love. She realizes her blessings—her son, mother’s love, and art—and decides to face life with optimism despite oppression like Vivian.

“I asked, ‘Why, Mother?’ She had a real estate license, she had been a nurse, and she owned a gambling house and a hotel. ‘Why do you want to go to sea?’ ‘Because they told me they wouldn’t let any woman in their union. They suggested that the union certainly would not accept a Negro woman. I told them, “You want to bet?” I will put my foot in their door up to my hip until every woman can get in that union, and can get aboard a ship and go to sea.’”

This quote shows Vivian’s feminist consciousness and connects to the theme of Resilience and Forging a Black Female Identity. She defies stereotypes and fights inequality by claiming her rights as a human, a Black woman who shouldn’t be barred from pursuits based on her race and gender. Even at a later age, Vivian’s strength serves as a lesson for Angelou.

“The mayor was white and the family she sent to my mother was white. She didn’t understand that Stockton Black Women for Humanity were gathered to serve all humanity: white, black, Spanish-speaking, and Asian; fat, thin, pretty, plain, rich, poor, gay, and straight. Mother said, ‘The mayor sat down and drank a half cup of coffee. She was so uncomfortable she said she had to go. I saw her to the door and the Lord knows, I felt sorry for her.’”

Angelou describes the purpose of Vivian’s Stockton Black Women for Humanity group, organized to help people in need. The quote delineates the Black feminist consciousness of the period and the politics of liberation. Vivian’s group seeks to liberate all women, with the white mayor exhibiting discomfort with intersectionality or what would be considered “white feminism” in a modern context.

“Baby, now they are treating you as if you are a horse’s ass. Let me tell you something. All you have to do is get your work done. If these people live, they will come back to you. They may have forgotten how badly they treated you, or they may pretend that they have forgotten. But watch: They will come back to you. In the meantime, Mother is here.”

When Angelou experiences mistreatment from the crew charged with her film adaptation, Vivian affirms her role as a mother. She keeps her promise to always stand by her daughter, her mothering being a process of providing unconditional love. Mothering helps Angelou navigate her life and elevates her as someone worthy of respect.

“This is the role of the mother, and in that visit I really saw clearly, and for the first time, why a mother is really important. Not just because she feeds and also loves and cuddles and even mollycoddles a child, but because in an interesting and maybe an eerie and unworldly way, she stands in the gap. She stands between the unknown and the known.”

Vivian’s model of motherhood makes Angelou realize the true meaning of motherhood. A mother not only nurtures and protects her children but also guides them through life’s unknowns. Though Vivian always supports her daughter, she also urges her to be her own person and take risks.

“Mother gave her children all she had to give, but I was never as lonely as Bailey for her presence. He always was the most precious person to me in my life and I had him. He, on the other hand, ached for her and all that the memory of her contained. […] When he gazed at Mother, his glance was complex: Worship shared space with disappointment.”

This quote reinforces Important Quote 24, as it illustrates Angelou and Bailey’s differing relationships with their mother. As Bailey was older than Angelou when Vivian left them, his trauma is more acute. As a teenager, Angelou distrusted her mother; however, they rebuild their relationship well into her adulthood. By contrast, an adult Bailey loves Vivian but never forgives her, having failed to work through his trauma.

“Vivian gave me all she had to give me. Her son Bailey had disappointed her. She thought that since his father had not accepted the chance to teach, to guide his manhood, she would do it. She didn’t consider that as a woman she could not possibly be a man, that as a mother she was unable to be a father. […] Bailey adored her but he was unable to always forgive her for sending him away.”

Angelou recognizes that despite Vivian’s mistakes, she did the best she could as a mother. However, Bailey’s lack of a father likely exacerbated his trauma. Vivian believes she could not nurture her son’s “manhood” the way a father could, as Bailey faces unique problems as a Black man—whom racist society views as a threat to whiteness. This revelation subverts Important Quote 1, in which a young Vivian is charged with “toughening up” her brothers.