The Eternal Silver Screen

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This was my favorite chapter from Letter to My Daughter by Maya Angelou. It's insightful and wise. I love how Angelou reflects on experience and her response to a situation that seems to honor her. So much of our past affects us in so many ways no matter how much we pretend it does not.

Many years have passed since the American Film Institute gave a tribute to William Wyler, one of Hollywood's most prolific and prestigious directors. I, as a member of the Board of Trustees, was asked to participate in the ceremony. I was to make a simple introduction. Of course I was flattered by the invitation and I accepted.

The affair, held at the posh Century Plaza Hotel, was attended by the most glamorous and famous actors and actresses of the day. Fred Astaire was there, as well as Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck. Walter Pidgeon, Greer Garson, Henry Fonda, and Charlton Heston sparkled in the audience. I sad trembling at a table and looked around the room. These were some of the faces which formed my ideas of romance, dignity, and justice. These people on the silver screen had shown grace, morality and beauty, chivalry and courage. Then the picture of the segregated movie house in my small town in Arkansas floated into my consciousness.

Each time my brother and I had gone to a picture show, we had to brave the hostile stares of white adults, and once gaining the box office, we paid our money and were rudely thumbed toward a rickety outdoor staircase which led to the balcony (called a buzzard's roost) restricted to black customers.

There we sat, knees to chin, in the cramped space, our feet crunching discarded candy wrappers and other debris on the floor. We perched there and studied how to act when we grew up and became beautiful and rich and white.

Years had passed and now I sat in the hotel's glittery ballroom and watched as movie star after movie star rose to pay tribute to Mr. Wyler. Old memories had taken me back to days of southern humiliation.  When my name was called, every word of my carefully memorized introduction fled from my mind, and I stood at the microphone looking into the famous faces, furious that they had been, even unwittingly, the agents of my old embarrassments. Anger thickened my tongue and slowed my brain. Only be exercising phenomenal control did I restrain myself from shouting, "I hate you. I hate you all. I hate you for your power and fame, and healthy and money, and acceptance." I think I was afraid that, if I opened my mouth I would blurt out the truth "I love you because I love everything you've got and everything you are." I stood mute before the famed audience. After a few attempts to speak I mumbled a few words and walked out of the room.

There was a rumor which was untrue that drugs had made me blank out. Upon later reflection of the painful incident, I am remembering what Arkansas gave me. I came to understand that I can never forget where I came from. My soul should always look back and wonder at the mountains I had climbed and the rivers I had forged and the challenges which still await down the road. I am strengthened by that knowledge.

Angelou, Maya. Letter to My Daughter. New York: Random House, 2008. Print.