Maya Angelou Poem Analysis

Maya Angelou is known to use her poetry to be culturally conscious and to encourage African Americans to celebrate their African roots (Du, 1), and “Africa” is no exception. “Africa” is an extended metaphor comparing the continent of Africa to a black woman. However, Maya Angelou does not tell just a singular story about the treatment and the resilience of the continent of Africa. Through her description of beauty, injustice, pain and resilience, she describes the life and treatment of women in America as well. This poem’s message can be applied to approximately five stages of the world’s history ; the colonization of Africa, the Slave Trade, slavery, life after “freedom”, and the present day. The treatment of Africa can be paralleled to the treatment of black women throughout these five stages. Further analysis will show how Maya Angelou’s poem, which was written in 1975, is still relevant over 40 years later. The first stanza of this poem uses metaphors to intertwine a woman into the continent of Africa. The diction used in this stanza gives a royal essence to this woman. The lines “sugar cane sweet, deserts her …show more content…
Despite this, these women rose up against oppression, escaped slavery and fought for freedom. They did not let their past destruct them; the pain only made them stronger.
Even after slavery ended, a new type of “brigand” (Angelou, 11) appeared in the form of segregation and Jim Crow Laws. The black woman was still “bled with guns” (Angelou, 16) through violence, such as Klu Klux Klan lynch mobs, tar and feathering, or beatings during peaceful protests. The line “sold her strong sons” (Angelou, 15) can refer to the recruitment of young black men into the military to serve as lab rats as the United States government tested diseases on them, such as in the infamous Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment (Thomas,