Black Life in the South

As McPherson notes, "Angelou's initial crisis" involves "her acceptance of herself as an outcast (because of her rejection by her parents" (McPherson 16). Angelou returns to this crisis as the crux of her predicament and that of blacks in the South: "Why did they send us away, and What did we do so wrong? So Wrong?" (Angelou 51). The words recall those of Jesus on the cross, asking why God had forsaken him.

Angelou puts this terrible abandonment in a social context to demonstrate its significance to Southern blacks in general. After her father and mother "decided to put an end to their calamitous marriage," Angelou and her brother, ages 3 and 4, were shipped to their grandmother's home by train--alone. She writes:

Years later I discovered that the United States had been crossed thousands of times by frightened Black children traveling alone to their newly affluent parents in Northern cities, or back to grandmothers in S

. . .
their plight. McPherson writes of "the series of incidents in which she is shocked by acts of injustice and into an awareness of her racial identity." Included among those numerous incidents are "the late night visit of the Ku Klux Klan, the poor white children who disrespect Grandmother Henderson, the trip to the dentist, the graduation speech. . . " (McPherson 15). That trip to the dentist reveals more than the fact that blacks had little or no medical care, for white doctors generally refused to treat blacks. That trip showed more than the fact that racism was not only unjust but cruel. That trip also showed how relatively good white people revealed their prejudice when push came to shove. Angelou's mother had in the past loaned the white dentist money to save his business, but now he refuses to return the favor, even when faced with a suffering little girl. Angelou once again feels the shame of having a beloved adult in her family humiliated at the hands of a younger white person: "It seemed terribly unfair to have a toothache and a headache and have to bear at the same time the heavy burden of Blackness." When they finally see the white dentist, he tells Angelou's mother, "Annie, you know I don't treat nigra, colored peopl
. . .

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Approximate Word count = 1630
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page)

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