Maya Angelou And Mrs. Bertha Flowers

768 Words4 Pages
Maya Angelou is an insecure black girl in the American South during the 1930s but then moves over to California during the 1940s. Maya’s parents divorce when she is only three years old and then Maya and her older brother, Bailey, have to live with their grandmother, Annie Henderson, in Stamps, Arkansas. Annie, who they call Momma, runs the only store in the black section of Stamps and becomes the moral figure in Maya’s childhood. Later on the children’s father comes to Stamps when Maya is 8 and takes her and her brother to St. Louis to see their mother. Since it is the early 1900’s Maya has to deal with practically no rules since she is black and slavery was abolished about 30 years ago. As young children, Maya and Bailey struggle with having…show more content…
Momma manages to break through Maya’s silence by introducing her to Mrs. Bertha Flowers, an educated woman who tells Maya to read works of literature out loud to regain her voice. Maya endures several appalling incidents that teach her about the nature of racism. For one Maya gets a job from a white woman who calls Maya “Mary” for her own convenience since Mary is a common white person name. Maya also gets a rotten tooth and Momma has to take her to the dentist who says he’d rather put his hand in a dirty dog’s mouth then her own. Finally Bailey finds a rotting black man’s body and a white man glad that he died. Momma gets worried and starts to save money for the children to go to Vivian, who lives in California now. When they move to California Maya finally feels like she is at a safe home that no one will make fun of her, but when she is 16 Maya is pregnant she hides it for 8 months but she luckily graduated high school and feels that she can take care of the baby and…show more content…
It was a hard time for those people always being accused for something they didn't do, and if they got raped treated wrong most of the law wouldn't do anything about it since their white and they don't care. Luckily like Maya it got better for those people and they could live their live semi-peacefully. There will always be racism and there is not much people can do about in the year 2010 there are laws that give all rights to other races and racism is a lot lower then it is now, but a few people still think that colored people should have no rights and thats
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