The Heart of a Woman

Angelou is staying in London while Make attends a conference. She is delighted with her new situation and infatuated with her husband, who entrances her each evening with romantic tales of Africa. When Angelou tells Make she is finding the days alone at home long and boring, he arranges for her to meet with a group of the other freedom fighters’ wives. The group meets at the house of Oliver Tambo, the head of the African National Congress. Mrs. Tambo has prepared a traditional South African meal, slow cooked beef with a corn-meal porridge called “mealy,” in order to help Angelou get used to South African food. Angelou notes, but does not tell her hostess, that the dish is pretty much identical to what an American would call “baked short ribs and corn meal mush” (134).

The women begin to discuss the conference and their role in it. They underline the active role that women have played in the struggle for freedom in all of their countries and deny that they only exist to “convenience” (135) their husbands or bear children. When a delegate’s wife from Sierra Leone shows the assembled women a bullet wound on her leg and tells them that she has suffered torture, the women all embrace and caress her, calling her their “sister” and a “true daughter” to “Mother Africa” (136). The oldest of the women, Mrs. Okalala from Uganda, performs a prayer ritual, sprinkling a bottle of beer in the corners of the room and praying in the Lingala language. All of the other women, including Angelou and two Somali guests who speak no English, join in, speaking in their own languages. Although Angelou does not understand the words being spoken, she understands and feels able to participate in the substance of the prayer.

The women exchange stories of the female heroes of their freedom movements. Angelou cites Harriet Tubman and Sojourner Truth. Tubman was an enslaved woman who, having successfully escaped, returned repeatedly to the South in order to free other enslaved people. Sojourner Truth was an emancipated person who spoke at an equal rights meeting of white women in the 1800s. The white men, already angry that their own women were demanding equal treatment, were incensed to see a Black woman rise to speak. Seeing her six-foot, muscular stature, they demanded proof that she was really a woman, and she responded with a stirring speech on enslaved womanhood and spoke the famous phrase “ain’t I a woman?” (138). After recounting how her 13 children were sold into slavery and how she suckled her white enslavers’ babies, Sojourner tore open her blouse to reveal her breasts, shocking the crowd. The African women are delighted at the courageous story. Angelou concludes by observing that, although she would not travel to Africa for another year, her first real experience of the continent and of shared African identity took place that afternoon.

Angelou travels back to Manhattan alone, with instructions to rent and furnish an apartment. Guy is eager to hear all about the African people she met, and mother and son enjoy repeating the African names of people Angelou has met. Guy tells his mother that he is thinking of changing his own name because Johnson will have originally been the name of an enslaver who enslaved his ancestors. When Make returns, he tells them that they will soon be going to live in Cairo. He is unimpressed with the second-hand furniture that Angelou has bought and takes her out to buy brand new, expensive replacements. Angelou begins to wonder where his money is coming from and how rich they really are.

Make is demanding of Angelou as a housekeeper, and she grows increasingly frustrated with the drudgery of her life. She argues with Abbey Lincoln, who suggests that feminism is a white construct and that Make is simply making her “into an African woman” (143). Reflecting back on her experiences in London, Angelou disagrees: “I wanted to be a wife and to create a beautiful home and make my man happy, but there was more to life than being a diligent maid and a permanent pussy” (143).

The chapter opens with the second meeting of the CAWAH (Cultural Association for Women of African Heritage). They begin by discussing a proposal that all members of the association should wear their hair in a short, natural Afro style. Angelou and Abbey Lincoln disagree, since they feel women should be free to style their hair in whichever way best complements their own beauty. The discussion moves forward and they agree that they must find a hotel in Harlem for their upcoming Black fashion show since too much Black activism is taking place in “white hotels” (144).

Angelou meets Rosa Guy to look for a venue, and Guy immediately informs her that the Congolese independence leader, Patrice Lumumba, has been killed. Devastated, the two women stumble upon a mass meeting of the Nation of Islam at which Malcolm X is speaking. Malcolm X is addressing a “rapt crowd.” He tells them that they are all soldiers fighting white American “devils” (145), and he doesn’t believe that white activists belong in the civil rights movement. The two women find the speech “harsh” but true. It galvanizes them, especially after receiving the news about Lumumba’s death.

Rosa Guy and Angelou decide to call a special meeting of the CAWAH to decide on an appropriate form of protest. Their proposal meets with a mixed reaction, with four of the 10 women present leaving because they do not believe an African American civil rights organization should be concerned with African politics. The women agree that they will attend the General Session of the United Nations together and stand in silence, wearing black mourning veils, when Lumumba’s death is announced.

Angelou tells Mr. Micheaux, the owner of a bookstore in Harlem, about the planned demonstration, and he agrees to organize a meeting where the women involved can promote the event. When they arrive at the bookstore, they are surprised at the crowd that has gathered and initially assume it is another meeting of the Nation of Islam. The crowd’s response to the women’s speeches is overwhelmingly positive.

That evening, Guy arrives home from a SANE (Society Against Nuclear Energy) meeting and harangues his mother about her generation’s complicity on America dropping the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. He then asks for permission to skip school to attend a march. Guy argues that he is sure “dad” (Make) would allow him to attend the event. Angelou agrees.

When the CAWAH members arrive at the United Nations, they are shocked to see a huge crowd with banners and placards. The situation becomes chaotic as the group only has seven tickets for the event, and the police are barricading the doors against the assembled protesters. Carlos Moore, a young Cuban activist, is shepherding in small groups of protesters. Angelou struggles to convince the protesters to refrain from violence, afraid that the police will open fire. After the crowd clashes violently with police, the protest proceeds from the United Nations to the Belgian consulate. When Angelou hears that Moore has been inside the consulate for some time, she is worried that he is in the hands of the police and haunted by the knowledge of “what the police do to black men” (162). Moore reminds her of her own brother, who is imprisoned. Angelou sets out to retrieve Moore, asking one of the male protesters to go with her. In choosing her companion, she follows Make’s advice and selects someone who looks like a “street hoodlum,” because “middle class black people […] think they have a stake in the system” (162). Angelou and her companion, Buddy, make it up to the 11th floor of the building but find the doors locked. They realize that they are trapped on the staircase, and Angelou is terrified that an ambush has been planned. She imagines how her son and mother will react to hearing of her death. Buddy finds an unlocked door on the ninth floor, and the two manage to escape. When she tries to introduce her hero to Rosa Guy, she finds that he has already disappeared into the crowd. She learns that Carlos had come out of the building shortly before she went in.

Wondering about how to proceed, the members of the CAWAH decide to request a meeting with Malcolm X. He agrees to see them, but argues that their protest was wrong because Black people can have no fruitful dialogue with a white organization, such as the United Nations, and demonstrations of this kind place Black lives at risk for no useful purpose. Malcolm X predicts that the riots will be publicly condemned by other civil rights organizations, and he states that the Nation of Islam, instead, will make a statement to the press, describing the demonstrations as “symbolic of the anger in this country” (169). Angelou and her colleagues are bitterly disappointed. Malcolm X’s predictions are borne out on the television and radio that evening.

Make is rarely at home, and Guy is growing up quickly, so Angelou feels increasingly isolated and is pleased to accept an invitation to Max Roach and Abbey Lincoln’s house to read a script. The play is Jean Genet’s The Blacks, for which Roach has composed the music. Angelou finds the language of the play “convoluted” and its white producers absurdly pompous. When she is alone with Roach and Lincoln, she bursts out laughing. Roach is furious and insists that she read the play before mocking it.

Angelou reads and rereads the play until she feels that she fully understands it. In The Blacks, Genet predicts that colonialism is destined to collapse due to its own greed, but the colonized people who rise to power afterward will be no better. Angelou rejects this idea. To her mind, precisely because of their long history of suffering, Black people are “more respectful, more merciful, more spiritual” (172) than their white counterparts. Black people respect and care for their own elderly family members while white people frequently abandon them to institutions. African Americans were merciful toward poor white people and have cared for and nursed the children of their white oppressors. They also have a long tradition of Christian spirituality in the face of terrible oppression and suffering. Angelou dismisses Genet’s conclusions as “a white foreigner’s idea of a people he did not understand” (173).

The producer of the play, Max Glanville, phones a few days later to offer Angelou a part. She has already decided to turn him down, but is riled into reconsidering when Make forbids her from taking the part, considering it an embarrassment to him as a freedom fighter. Abbey Lincoln suggests that Max Roach should intervene with Make. Make reads the play and changes his mind. He dismisses her misgivings about the play’s message as naive and “reverse racism” (175).

In Genet’s drama, Black actors play all the parts. Angelou, who is playing the “white queen,” agrees with Genet on at least this point, as she felt that the actors’ performance reflects the extent to which Black people are obliged to carefully study and understand white culture and behavior. She compares this knowledge to the superficial cultural stereotypes and lucrative cultural appropriation that typify white “escapades” into Black culture (180). Despite her initial reservations, she ends up enjoying rehearsals although she feels that the harsh satire on white tyranny will cause the play to flop. At the rehearsals, Angelou meets the African American author James Baldwin, who becomes a friend.

On the morning when the play is due to open, Angelou learns that Max Roach and Abbey Lincoln have pulled out on the production because the producers have reneged on Roach’s contract for the music. Angelou decides to stay on the cast and, together with Ethel Ayler, composes alternative music for the play.

The Blacks is a huge success, but Angelou is baffled as to what attracts its predominantly white audience. She reflects that Black activists have been making exactly the same points for over a century, so surely the message of the play should be nothing new. An interaction with a white audience member following a performance provides Angelou with an answer to this question. The woman tearfully approaches her, telling her that she has seen the play five times in the four weeks it has been running.  When Angelou asks why she keeps coming back, the woman responds that it is because she “supports” and “understands” the play’s message (184). Angelou retorts by asking her if any Black people live in her building and whether she has any Black friends, and the woman immediately backs away from her and becomes uncomfortable. When Angelou follows the woman and touches her arm, she recoils, calling out, “Don’t touch me” (185). When a fellow actor asks Angelou what has happened, Angelou tells him the woman is a hypocrite.