Summary:
In the first 5 chapters Maya Angelou describes the poor segregated town she grew up in. When her parents divorced Maya and her brother Bailey went to live with there grandmother. Momma, as they come to call her, owns a store in the segregated part of town and this is where Maya said she spent most of her time for about 8 years of her life. Maya explains that the town was almost completely segregated and that the Klan was active there. She once had to help her crippled uncle hide from a lynch mob!
Response:
My initial thought when reading these chapters was how different a time it actually was. Maya was raised to address people with formal greetings and slipping up could result in being hit with a switch. Segregation was a huge social factor in her early years and her descriptions and depictions of white people and their actions are those based on fear.
