Maya Angelou: October 14, 1971

Mark Linenthal introduces Maya Angelou, who reads and remarks on the following poems from Just Give Me a Cool Drink of Water 'fore I Diiie: "They Went Home," "Harlem Hopscotch," "Let's Majeste," "When I Think About Myself," "Letters to an Aspiring Junkie," "Miss Scarlett, Mr. Rhett, and Other Latter-Day Saints," "Times-Square-Shoeshine-Composition," "Sepia Fashion Show," "On Working White Liberals," "We Saw Beyond Our Seeming," "The Mothering Blackness," "No Loser, No Weeper," "To a Man," "Riots: 60's," "The Calling of Names," "My Guilt," and "No, No, No, No." Angelou then takes questions from the audience. During the conversation, she recites her poems "Jelly Roll" and "I'm Your Mystery," which were written for singer Nina Simone. She discusses the film she wrote, Georgia, Georgia, and the process of the film adaptation of her autobiography, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. She says she has recently moved to Berkeley, and speaks of finding a true sense of home in Ghana, and of the practice of signifying speech there, to avoid slander charges of "assault by tongue."