Description

Easton Press leather edition of Maya Angelou's "Gather Together in My Name," a COLLECTOR'S edition, published in 2006. Bound in deep hunter green leather, the book has camel tan moire silk end leaves, acid-free paper, Symth-sewn binding, a satin book marker, hubbed spine, gold gilding on three edges----in FINE condition---opened from SHRINK WRAP for photos. Maya Angelou, who lived from 1928--2014, was an American poet, novelist, and civil rights activist. She published seven autobiographies, three books of essays, and several books of poetry spanning over 50 years. Her first novel, "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings," tells of her life up to age of 17. When Maya was four and her brother five years old and living in California, their father put them on a train and sent them to their grandmother, Anna Henderson, in STAMPS, ARKANSAS. They arrived on a train---without adults- and their grandmother raised the two children. Maya was contented and happy in the highly segregated small town---because the grandmother was a fine lady. In "an astonishing exception to the harsh economics of African Americans of the time, Angelou's grandmother prospered during the Great Depression and WW II, because the general store she owned sold basic and needed commodities and because she made wise investments. Four years later when Angelou was seven and her brother eight, the children's father "came to Stamps without warning" and returned the children to their mother in St. Louis. There Maya was raped by Freeman, her mother's boyfriend, and she did not speak for five years. "Gather Together in My Name" is Angelou's second memoir and follows Angelou, called Rita, from age 17 to 19. The title is taken from the Bible but conveys how one Black female lived in a white-dominated society following World War II. Rita becomes closer to her mother in this book and goes through a variety of jobs and relationships. "Black men from the South who had held no tools more complicated than plows had learned to use lathes and bores and welding guns and had brought in their quotas of war-making machines. Women who had only known maid's uniforms and mammy-made dresses donned the awkward men's pants and steel helmets, and made the ship-fitting sheds hum some buddy. Prostitutes didn't even take the time to remove their seventy-five dollar shoes when they turned twenty-dollar tricks. Everyone was a part of the war effort. All the sacrifices had won us victory and now the good times were coming. During this crises, black people had often made more money in a month than they had seen in their whole lives. I was seventeen, very old, embarrassingly young, with a son of two months, and I still lived with my mother and step-father. I left San Francisco for Los Angeles, Chicago, Detroit, where "they say" jobs are begging for workers. Maya is insulted by a "silly white woman who probably counted on her toes" and told her she had "not passed" the simple test. . .the years of white ignorance said I had not passed the test to become a telephone operator. Maya became a "bus girl" who collected the dishes, wiped the tables, and made sure the salt and pepper shakers were clean. "I lasted a week." Then Rita got a job as a "Creole cook" and earned $75.00 a week. "Sheeit. Ain't nothing but onions, green peppers and garlic. Put that in and you got Creole food. Then Rita met "Curly," whose dark brown skin glistened, and Curly taught her to love sex, but Curly left Rita when his girl friend showed up. Then Rita worked at the Hi Hat Club, the customers coming from the underworld with a scattering of sailors. The women laid open their bodies and threw away their dignity upon a heap of come-filled rubbers. L'Tanya danced barefoot, with a string of little belts around her ankles and rings on her toes. Rita decided she didn't fit a rhythm tap routine. R.L. said in a slow voice, "Okay, Rita, break a leg." Show-business talk. I grinned. "You too." And we hit the stage. The audience shouted, "Shake it, baby," "Dance, baby, dance." Rita learned that many pimps gave their girls cocaine, called 'white girl.' The maids and doormen, factory workers and janitors who were able to leave their ghetto homes and rub against the cold-shouldered white world, told themselves that things were not as bad as they seemed. . .they shouted loudly on Sunday morning. Then Rita began working for Troub as a prostitute. After two months, my closets were filled with expensive two- and three-piece suit. Dresses, sweaters, and stocking crammed by drawers, and I spent days reading Thomas Wolfe and going to the movies with Guy. Angelou describes what often happened to black women and men after WW 2. 214 pages. I offer combined shipping.