When I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings was published in 1970, it served as the catalyst for a new wave of activism and black feminism that digressed from the stereotypical narrative that black women are strong, emotionless beings who can endure brute suffering without consequence. Angelou rendered herself as a vulnerable, resilient, and flawed. In Still I Rise, Oprah expresses the importance of representation: “I never knew of another black girl who had been raped.” Angelou was never afraid to talk about things that are usually kept secret in an effort to defend blackness from narrow and vanquishing stereotypes. She was true first to herself as she explored the meaning of self through the written word, while seemingly never concerning herself with fame and its burdens.
Many of the struggles around race and politics that motivated Angelou nearly half a decade ago are just as relevant in modern America. Her recurring portraits of the country were illustrated through poetry, prose, and movement; rare footage in the documentary of Angelou cavorting with other pioneering black activists, including her dear friend James Baldwin, offer some much-needed joy — they laugh loudly and lean on one another like siblings. Guy Johnson, her only child, born when Angelou was seventeen, tells the story of when his mother welcomed Malcolm X into their home while living in Accra, Ghana, and cooked her acclaimed fried chicken for him as he talked about the movement he was leading in America. It was then that she decided to come back to Harlem to join the fight for equality, but shortly after she arrived, he was assassinated.
She didn’t leave her home for weeks, until James Baldwin knocked on her door and demanded that she pick herself up and write. Her pen eventually became her resistance: “When I reach for the pen to write, I have to scrape it across these scars.” Before she was Dr. Angelou, she was Miss Calypso, a Calypso singer who was a captivating performer with a story inside of her she refused to swallow.
The decision to present this film through PBS seems to be yet another act of defiance in a time where publicly funded networks are being threatened by the current administration. It seems that Dr. Angelou is reaching her hand out of the grave to shake us awake and into action, imploring us to bend and not break as alternative ways of resistance are being cultivated. With the release of this documentary only months after the Oscar-nominated James Baldwin depiction, I Am Not Your Negro, the voices of the past are frighteningly applicable to today. After spending five years in fear of the power of her voice as an abused child, Angelou instinctively recognized the real danger dwells in the silence. If these films tell us anything, it is that silence in times of corruption is more than just a personal choice: it is complicity.
Maya Angelou: And Still I Rise, which first aired on PBS in February, is available to stream on the network’s website with the creation of an account. It can also currently be streamed via Google Play and YouTube
Article Appeared @http://www.villagevoice.com/film/maya-angelous-resilient-spirit-lives-on-in-a-sprawling-documentary-9863409