The Heart of a Woman

Maya Angelou opens The Heart of a Woman with a quotation from the spiritual “the ole ark’s a moverin’ along” (3), which, she writes, would have made a good anthem for civil rights in the United States in 1957, though she distinguishes between movement and progress. Angelou characterizes the movement for equal rights as a constant push and pull between progress toward equality and persistent prejudice.

Angelou zooms in from this broader, national context to her personal situation. Freshly returned from a European tour as premier dancer in Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess and living in a house boat commune in San Francisco with her son, Angelou enjoys a welcome respite from racial tensions. She dismisses her mother’s concerns about their prospects in this setting, noting her and her mother’s similarities. Seeking structure for her son and more privacy and comfort for herself, Angelou resumes professional singing and moves into an apartment. She relies on white friends to deceive her prospective landlord into renting to her, and the landlord reacts poorly when he sees that his new tenants are Black.

When Angelou’s voice coach, Wilkie, offers to introduce her to legendary jazz singer Billie Holiday, she feels torn between her admiration for Holiday as an artist and her anxiety about the singer’s reputation for heavy drug use and erratic behavior. Holiday initially dismisses Angelou as a “square” and expresses disinterest in meeting her 12-year-old son, Guy. However, when the boy arrives the singer seems disarmed by his energy and curiosity and returns to chat with him and sing him to sleep for the next four evenings. On the last night, she sings him the famous protest song “Strange Fruit,” which describes the bodies of lynched men hanging from the poplar trees in the South. When Guy asks Holiday to explain the metaphor, Holiday responds with a graphic and angry explanation. Guy is unsettled by Holiday’s behavior and hurt by Angelou’s limited response.

That night, Holiday asks to accompany Angelou to the club where she is singing. Angelou announces Billy Holiday’s presence to the audience and she receives a standing ovation. When Angelou’s set begins, Holiday heckles her. Angelou pursues Holiday into the bathroom, where the two women discuss fame. Holiday suggests that the standing ovation was not an honor, but that the people simply stood up to “see a n***** who had been in jail for dope” (16). Holiday predicts Angelou will become famous herself, though not for singing, and warns Angelou to trust no one and to protect her son. Holiday dies a few months later.

Later, Guy’s school bars him from riding on the school bus because he used “foul language” in front of two white girls. When she confronts her son, it turns out that he simply used the words “penis,” “vagina,” and “womb” in a conversation about reproduction. Angelou is torn between urging her son to caution and encouraging him to speak the truth. When the school tries to transfer him to another class, she makes the decision to move to the more ethnically diverse Westlake area.