Momma Welfare Roll by Maya Angelou - Essay Example

Full Momma Welfare Roll (A poem by Maya Angelou) 13 July This funny but somehow true and realistic depictionof how most black women have conducted themselves in the aftermath of the Civil Rights Movement also shows in a realistic manner their sad plight in American society. Maya Angelou lived a full life and she died only just recently (May 28, 2014 at aged 86) but she was an extremely accomplished woman in her own time despite the many challenges she faced in her life, especially in her younger years.

It is therefore a very good idea to examine her biography in order to understand her excellent body of work. Against this background, a reader can relate and empathize with her. She was born on April 4, 1928 in St. Louis, Missouri (her real name is Marguerite Johnson) at the height of the Jim Crow era. This had profoundly affected her outlook in life as reflected in her own writing (poems, books, essays, plays, films, television shows, and seven autobiographies). She was a prolific and accomplished writer as well as singer, dancer, and stage actress but perhaps her most important credential was being a civil rights activist.

It is in this last capacity that a reader can understand better her poem “Momma Welfare Roll.” Most of her works did not reveal the fact she did not finish any formal higher education at all due to her excellent style of writing and it is virtually impossible to know she did not finish college. One can draw meaning from the theme of her poem which is how black women were often dependent on the governments welfare checks and contented themselves with that kind of situation in life without trying to improve themselves such as by getting proper education.

Maya is commenting on the time in the 1960s when blacks supposedly attained equality but in reality were still subject to subtle discrimination such that most of them were either jobless or working in low-paying jobs so in essence the Civil Rights Movement did not achieve much. A change took place in the political discourse with the election of Pres. Obama (Fox, para. 8). Work Cited Fox, Margalit. “Maya Angelou, Lyrical Witness of the Jim Crow South, dies at 86.” The New York Times, 28 May 2014. Web. 12 July 2014. . Due: July 14, 2014 @ 9:04 a.m.