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4.23 AVERAGE
4.23 AVERAGE
adventurous
emotional
funny
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
challenging
emotional
funny
hopeful
informative
inspiring
medium-paced
adventurous
challenging
funny
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
fast-paced
Angelou has such accessible writing. She picks really interesting anecdotes and her personality and spirit really shine through her writing. I thought this book had a lot of insightful ideas about the pain of black Americans vs Africans, and about how different a diaspora is from those from their motherland. At times I feel like some of the stories and lessons flew over my head, but I feel like her writing is so easy and open that it was probably my fault.
adventurous
dark
emotional
funny
reflective
fast-paced
emotional
informative
reflective
slow-paced
adventurous
challenging
hopeful
inspiring
medium-paced
challenging
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
While some of the earlier books in Angelou's autobiography series are more exciting in content, All God's Children Need Traveling Shoes provided a deeper dive into her adult life living in Africa. This period of her life is quieter compared to the whirlwind of being a performer, yet her work in activism and in working to define herself as a Black American away from her birth country was fascinating in itself. As always, her use of language is so deliberate and poetic. Her emotions, particularly those involving her son, Guy, and in her relationship to being American, were made so accessible through her writing.
Shamefully, as a Black woman well into my 20s, this book was the first Maya Aneglou book I've ever read. It did not disappoint.
More than anything, 'All God's Children Need Travelling Shoes' is a search for an answer to the question: 'Where is home?'.
In the 1960s, Maya Angelou finds herself on this search in Ghana, where many African-American intellectuals and activists of the time chose to migrate. She, like her counterparts, went there to work but even more pressingly to also find a connection to her roots. The continent was abuzz with Pan-Africanism, Black nationalism and de-colonial thinking. AGNTS documents the many happenings of this movement from Angelou's perspective. Her description of the colours, sounds and people of the West African nation are not only vivid, but so drenched in love that Angelou's affection for Ghana and Ghanaians is undeniable. But through her poetic writing, she shows the reader that perhaps that love is not enough. Perhaps, her and her Black American contemporaries are simply too far removed from Africa to feel connected to it anymore. She finds herself longing for the streets of the cities she left behind in the US, for the rhythm and the one-of-a-kind culture that African Americans carved out for themselves. But what, Angelou asks her readers, is their alternative? A nation that denies even the most basic tenets of their humanity? A place that brutalises them as punishment for merely existing? Is home simply a nothingness to Black Americans?
Maya Angelou also writes about herself in retrospect with a refreshing self-scrutiny and humility that I think all peopled should learn from. She freely admits her faults as a mother to her only son Guy, and concedes that she found it difficult to contend with his transition from boy to man. She also records being chastised by Malcolm X himself in a conversation that birthed one of his most famous quotes: 'Don't be in such a hurry to condemn a person because he doesn't do what you do, or think as you think. There was a time when you didn't know what you know today'. A pleasant surprise for myself who had always loved this quote of his, but was unaware of the context it came from until reading this book.
Another aspect I enjoyed was seeing the conversations and meetings of prominent Black figures of the time through Angelou's eyes. A painfully awkward encounter between Malcolm X and Mohammad Ali after their rift is a favourite of mine that also got me a little teary. The Liberian president's speech at the Egyptian embassy is another.
The book ends with a harrowing encounter between Maya and the tribe of people she realises her slave ancestors descend from. The experience (which I won't spoil too much about) answers her initial question about home in a heartwarming way.
I loved this book. The experience of reading it made me mourn the loss of Maya Angelous all over again.
More than anything, 'All God's Children Need Travelling Shoes' is a search for an answer to the question: 'Where is home?'.
In the 1960s, Maya Angelou finds herself on this search in Ghana, where many African-American intellectuals and activists of the time chose to migrate. She, like her counterparts, went there to work but even more pressingly to also find a connection to her roots. The continent was abuzz with Pan-Africanism, Black nationalism and de-colonial thinking. AGNTS documents the many happenings of this movement from Angelou's perspective. Her description of the colours, sounds and people of the West African nation are not only vivid, but so drenched in love that Angelou's affection for Ghana and Ghanaians is undeniable. But through her poetic writing, she shows the reader that perhaps that love is not enough. Perhaps, her and her Black American contemporaries are simply too far removed from Africa to feel connected to it anymore. She finds herself longing for the streets of the cities she left behind in the US, for the rhythm and the one-of-a-kind culture that African Americans carved out for themselves. But what, Angelou asks her readers, is their alternative? A nation that denies even the most basic tenets of their humanity? A place that brutalises them as punishment for merely existing? Is home simply a nothingness to Black Americans?
Maya Angelou also writes about herself in retrospect with a refreshing self-scrutiny and humility that I think all peopled should learn from. She freely admits her faults as a mother to her only son Guy, and concedes that she found it difficult to contend with his transition from boy to man. She also records being chastised by Malcolm X himself in a conversation that birthed one of his most famous quotes: 'Don't be in such a hurry to condemn a person because he doesn't do what you do, or think as you think. There was a time when you didn't know what you know today'. A pleasant surprise for myself who had always loved this quote of his, but was unaware of the context it came from until reading this book.
Another aspect I enjoyed was seeing the conversations and meetings of prominent Black figures of the time through Angelou's eyes. A painfully awkward encounter between Malcolm X and Mohammad Ali after their rift is a favourite of mine that also got me a little teary. The Liberian president's speech at the Egyptian embassy is another.
The book ends with a harrowing encounter between Maya and the tribe of people she realises her slave ancestors descend from. The experience (which I won't spoil too much about) answers her initial question about home in a heartwarming way.
I loved this book. The experience of reading it made me mourn the loss of Maya Angelous all over again.
reflective
fast-paced