Barbara P. Moss
Maya Angelou, another eloquent storyteller writer grew up in Arkansas and California during the 1920’s and 1930’s. Maya has written of how different her education was from that of her white classmates. She states that past participles were learned by all in the classroom, but in the street and at home, the blacks learned to drop s’s from plurals and suffixes from past tense verbs. At school during a given situation students might respond with “that’s not unusual,” but street language, meeting the same situation, “It be’s that way sometimes” was very easily said.
Maya’s Week
End Glory
is
a very interesting account of a black woman who works all week in a factory, but on weekends she goes out on the town. People talk about her and speculate. The woman in question feels people who ridicule her should watch her on Saturday night if they want to learn to live life right. She said he life “ain’t heaven,” “but it sho ain’t hell.” She says she isn’t on top, but that’s fine with her because if she’s able to work and “get paid right” and have luck to be black on Saturday night—she’s sitting on top of the world.
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