Beyonce and Kelly Rowland may have higher profiles but their sister in Destiny, Michelle Williams, isn’t sitting home waiting for the phone to ring. Since January, she’s been starring as part of the touring ensemble of “Fela!” the Tony-wining Broadway production about the life of controversial Nigerian singer Fela Kuti, produced by Jay-Z, Jada Pinkett Smith and Will Smith. Williams plays Fela’s American girlfriend, Sandra, who influenced his genre-defying mix of African and American soul music. Though she’s done other musicals including “The Color Purple” “Chicago” and “Aida,” Williams admits her church family doesn’t always know what to make of her shows.

“My family all came to see me in Chicago and when they walked in the green room everybody was a little quiet,” Williams told the Tom Joyner Morning Show when she joined the crew during “‘Fela’s” tour stop in Dallas. “My mother she loved it but she was trying to to show me how her hips do the three o’ clock, four o’clock. I was like I’m don’t want to know how I was probably conceived. I’m OK with that. For [Fela] they gave me the church look. Fela Kuti was a hard man. It was his life. He talked about everything from politics to love  and sex to smoking Natural Nigerian grass so you can imagine a lot of church people not responding well to that.”

Still, Williams says the moves she’s learned should come in handy during her honeymoon, though she provided no hints of where, when or with who. The former Destiny’s Child singer and self-proclaimed church girl who originally hails from Illinois (and whose first name is actually Tenitra) was singing with Monica when the opportunity to join Destiny’s Child came about during the time of the group’s rapidly changing lineups. Williams stuck, making history with the Kelly and Beyonce as one of the top-selling girl groups of all time.

In spite of  their reservations about some of her projects, Williams says her family’s support keeps her grounded.

“The awesome thing about my family is that they come to support me in whatever I do. Some of them came over to London when I opened in the musical “Chicago” over there and they were like ‘Well, do you have to do so much cursin’?’ It always something but when they’ve come to see me in my other shows, from solo tours to the Destiny’s Child shows – I’m like ‘Omigod I have to do this booty pop and the bishop is in the third row’ – but I love the support and that’s my foundation, the church and my family.”

Williams’ stint with ‘Fela!” ends in June. But she says a Destiny’s Child reunion, despite “Nuclear” a recent single and their Super Bowl appearance is not in the works that she knows of.

“Man, how do you top what happened in February? I don’t know. We haven’t talked about that.”

Williams regards the Super Bowl show as a highlight of her career, but says those moments are nerve-wracking.

“Regardless of how much preparation you have, you are always nervous, cause it’s live television. But that’s what we did on the last Destinys’ Child  tour.  I remember Beyonce saying ‘Remember that was our favorite thing to do,’  and she said I brought the toasters back for y’all.I said ‘All right girl, lets go. Those are my girls I adore them so much.”

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(Photo: PR Photos)

Somehow an aged story about an alleged sex tape between Usher and his wife Tameka Foster has spread like wildfire among the TJMS crew and they cannot get enough!  Plus, more NBA and Charles Ramsey talk.

Sybil Wilkes discusses today’s news headlines including the latest on Charles Ramsey and the Jodi Arias murder conviction.

On August 15,1969 black folk music singer Richie Havens opened the legendary Woodstock festival in Bethel, New York. Woodstock Music & Arts Festival was considered by many as the most pivotal point in mainstream music history. Havens was supposed to be the fifth act of the show, but due to a technical issue, he kicked off the festival for over 500,000 people. After his first song, Havens was asked to perform four more songs, including an impromptu version of “Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child,” which later became a cover song for the Woodstock movie. (Watch video of performance below.)

Raised in the Bedford-Stuyvesant area of Brooklyn with eight siblings, Havens learned music from his father, a factory worker and nighttime piano player. The young musician was raised on the sounds of doo wop, but as he got older, he wanted to sing about social change. He began listening to artists like Fred Neil, Dino Valenti and Tom Paxton. Havens stood six and a half feet tall and recorded with a soft voice for a predominately white folk music audience.

It wasn’t an easy road for Havens. He and other musicians would play at local coffee houses, featuring 14-20 minute sets per night. The pay was by donation for many performances. Havens performed under those conditions for seven years. He was soon discovered by Bob Dylan’s manager, Albert Grossman. In 1968, he released his debut album entitled “Mixed Bag” under the Verve/Folkways label.

Then came his Woodstock performance.

It was only a year later that Havens recorded a successful cover of the Beatles’ “Here Comes the Sun,” in 1970.  He soon launched a successful music and acting career. He starred as Othello in the 1974 rock musical “Catch My Soul” and appeared in “Greased Lightning” (1977) opposite Richard Pryor.

Havens took to the road, touring for nearly 40 years, only retiring in his late sixties. Havens co-wrote one of his more famous songs,”Handsome Johnny”, with actor Lou Gossett Jr.  He released 21 albums throughout his career and presented his final album “Nobody Left to Crown” in 2008.

In 2009, Richie Havens returned to Woodstock for the 40th anniversary celebration, the place where he gained half a million fans in a three-hour set.

On April 22, 2013, Richie Havens died of a heart attack at his home in New Jersey. He was 72 years old. His ashes will be scattered at the scene of his first big performance at Woodstock, which is now Bethel Woods Center for the Arts.

(Photo: AP)

This is Chris Paul from the TJMS running through the top stories in roughly sixty seconds with The Morning Minute.

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie has made a surprising confession.  He confessed that back in February he secretly underwent lap band surgery to lose weight.  So last week Jason Collins came out of the closet and now this week Chris Christie is coming out of the refrigerator.

A Las Vegas judge has set a trial date for Flavor Flav.  On September 30^th Flavor will stand trial for felony charges of threatening his girlfriend’s son with a butcher knife.  And if convicted Flav faces 12 years in prison.  Man, 12 years is already a long time to serve behind bars, but imagine how slow it will go by with a clock around your neck.

And the world of interracial romance NFL star Mario Williams is suing his ex-fiancé over the engagement ring.  The ten karat ring cost Mario $785,000, but when the white girl dumped him she kept it.  Well Mario, don’t expect any sympathy from the black women listening right now because they’ll tell you that a rich brother dating a white woman is like being on a game show.  If the price is right they don’t say let’s make a deal and play the newlywed game, but your money is in jeopardy so don’t press your luck or you’ll get the whammy.

When retired NBA player Anfernee “Penny” Hardaway decided to help out and old friend, he never knew that it would lead to one of the most rewarding years of his life. That year is detailed in his new book “On These Courts: A Miracle Season that Changed a City, a Once-Future Star, and a Team Forever.” The Memphis, Tennessee native was raised by his grandmother in the city’s rough Binghampton neighborhood. When one of his oldest friends, Desmond Merriweather, the coach at Lester Middle School in Binghamton, was stricken with colon cancer, he asked Hardaway to take over his team.

Hardaway said yes, beginning the start of an incredible journey for him and the group of players who went on to win an improbable championship. After 15 years in the league, injuries retired him four years ago. He was trying to figure out his life after pro basketball when the opportunity arose.

“Lester Middle was an elementary school and high school that I went to years ago. They closed it down and reopened it as a middle school and I went back a couple years ago. One of my good friends was diagnosed with colon cancer and he was the coach. They gave him about 24 hours to live. He survived the cancer and started coaching again at Lester, and when he went back to coaching, he was still doing chemo and wasn’t strong enough to continue the head coaching job and he asked me to come over and help. The very first practice I went to, I kind of fell in love with the team and just stayed there from that point on.”

Hardaway didn’t just improve the basketball team standings, he also helped motivate the young men to do better in school and become more motivated overall.

“This is my old neighborhood which makes it even sweeter. I went back to my old school, where my mother went to school, where my whole family went to school. I’m coaching the kids of the people I grew up with and really trying to inspire and motivate them to do what they want to do in life.”

Hardaway credits the Boys and Girl’s Clubs and coaches there from keeping him from the drugs and gangs that menaced his neighborhood. Obviously, it paid off with his NBA career. Though his success with Lester might make him more attractive to college and even pro coaching opportunities, Hardaway says he enjoys working with elementary school kids.

“I really want to stay in the grass roots,” Hardaway says. “I really want to stay with middle school and elementary age kids because that’s where it all starts. I’m going to try to instill thiings in them when they’re younger. They are easier to teach when they are younger as well, because older guys they kind of think they know it all. I’d rather stay with the kids.”

(Photo: Iam1cent.com)

Dominique thinks Wendy Williams is on the Lil’ Kim makeover plan.

Actor Michael Clarke Duncan’s untimely death last September was a sad event for his family, his fiancee, reality star Omarosa Manigualt and the fans who loved his work in movies like “The Green Mile.” But since his death, his sister Judy and Omarosa have had some issues. Fans of “The Celebrity Apprentice” may remember harsh comments that Claudia Jordan made about Manigualt and on the March 17th episode of the last season, Manigault left a task to try and stop the tabloids from releasing the teary 911 call became ill. Judy Duncan called the Tom Joyner Morning Show to try and set the record straight.

The biggest revelation is that Manigualt may not have been Duncan’s fiancee after all.

“When I sat in the hospital in July, she brought me an 8 1/2 by 11 inch photo of a hand with a ring and said ‘Look at this picture we’re engaged,’ and then I did not see a ring. Then in diferent photos, there are different rings. Now I spoke to people within Michael’s camp, people who were familiar with Michael’s finances, things that he buys. If Michael was going to buy you a ring it was going to be expensive, first of all. And you would have had that ring on and you would have wanted people to see.”

Duncan says that contrary to a TMZ report that said the two were secretly planning Janurary 2013 nuptials, there was no wedding date set. Manigault and Duncan had been dating since 2010, reportedly meeting in a Whole Foods store.

“Michael was not engaged,” Duncan asserts. “Because the first person he would have told would have been my mom. And with her living with me, then I would have known.”

Duncan’s main issues with Manigualt is that Duncan died alone. After an initial heart attack in July that left the actor hospitalized until his death in September, Manigualt was at the Tom Joyner Family Reunion with her mother when Michael died unexpectedly.

“We were told by her, that her mom was there, holding his hand, reading Scriptures to him as he passed. And she was on the cruise,” Duncan says. (Tom corrected her; Manigualt and her mother were attending the Family Reunion in Orlando, when Duncan died.)

I am devastated,” Omarosa said at the time,  in a statement to RadarOnline.com. “He was the love of my life.”

Duncan told the TJMS that she can’t speak directly to any issues with the will. Reportedly, though Omarosa is the main beneficiary of Duncan’s reported $18 million dollar estate,  Judy was left $100,000 from the will. Judy has hired a lawyer, claiming that her ill brother was not in mental or physical shape to sign any papers.

“I find discussing finances so distasteful in public,” Judy said. “Our legal team has told us due to legalities we really can’t talk about the will. We are included. My issues now are not so much money. There’s not enough money that can be given to me to make up for the loss of my brother and I’m the caretaker of my mom. My mom is 93 and she lives with me and I take care of her. But there are some other issues.”

Duncan says she is looking for the return of photos and other personal property and that despite emails to Omarosa that she has in her possession, the items have not been returned. At this point in time, Judy confirms that the two women are no longer in communication. On her end, Omarosa has denied any wrongdoing.

“I don’t control the estate or the finances and Judy knows it,” Omarosa said earlier this year. “If you saw all of her emails and texts to me you would see that she is just trying to get money from me, and threatened going to press if I did not give it to her and that is a crime!” said Manigault.

Despite the rift, Judy says she doesn’t expect to go to court. She also says she was not estranged from her brother at the time of his death as has been claimed. She and her family were at the funeral. If anything, Duncan seems hurt by the lack of regard she says Manigualt has had for her and her family during such a sad time.

“There are just things that we wanted that we didn’t get and we’ve been lied to about some things,” Duncan says.

Huggy Lowdown jumps on the Charles Ramsey train and gives his two cents about the funny heroic figure. Plus, more on former Gov. Mark Sanford’s return to politics.

Rev. Al Sharpton thinks it is time for hip-hop artists to step-up and take responsibility for positively representing black history and culture.

Hello Mr. Joyner:

My name is Tracey Jackson and I am a forty-one year-old, retired military reservist who served her country in 2003-2004 in Iraq.   i am also a single mother of four, with two daughters in college, a fifteen year-old son and a two-year old toddler boy.

In 2008, i allowed my cousin to move into my home so that i could move into another school district for my daughter. Well, that didn’t go well and the end result was a damaged home in foreclosure for lack of mortgage payments over a two year period.

The last few years have been all about reclaiming my home from the bank and making it loveable again.  Finally, in April my two youngest children and i were able to leave my mother’s house and move back home.    However, when the water was turned back on a valve broke on the water heater and we had an awful flood, which destroyed the few possessions we had.

Mr. Joyner, it is my Christmas wish to ask for your help to get a bedroom set for my teenage son, new pots and pans, needed home items and a kitchen table with chairs, so  that my family can sit and eat together and enjoy a place that feels homey.

Respectfully,

Tracey Jackson

First Lady Michelle Obama keeps a pretty busy schedule as First Lady, probably doing more before sunrise than most of us do in a whole day. But she’s managed to write a #1 New York Times bestseller, “American Grown: The Story of The White House Kitchen Garden and Gardens Across America,” a gorgeously photographed coffee table book about the development of the White House garden and other gardens that have inspired her. She hopes that the book encourages others to start growing their own food, especially given the health benefits of doing so. Like other moms around the country, Mrs. Obama is planning to spend Mother’s Day having a quiet dinner at home with her mother, First Grandmother Marian Robinson, her daughters, Malia and Sasha, and her husband, President Barack Obama. She told The Tom Joyner Morning Show that although the meal has not yet been planned, it will include vegetables, but for her mother, those vegetables won’t be on the table without some fried chicken. Here are more excerpts from Mrs. Obama’s conversation with the TJMS.

TOM JOYNER:  Before I start, Happy Mother’s Day to you and Miss Robinson.

MRS. OBAMA: Thank you so much, Tom.  Thank you so much. I will pass that along to Grandma.

Sybil: First Grandma.

Mrs. Obama: She is doing just fine.  She is doing her thing.  She is happy and healthy.  She gets out.  She has her little lunches.  She has got a little crew of ladies here that she will meet with.  So she is doing just fine.

Tom: She has got an old school jam session on Friday night?

Mrs. Obama:  Absolutely.  (Laughter.)

TJMS: The new book — “American Grown: The Story of the White House Kitchen Garden and Gardens Across America” — number one on the New York Times bestseller list.  Congratulations.

Mrs. Obama:  Thank you so much. It’s my very first book and I’m so proud of it.  We decided to write the book to tell the story of the White House kitchen garden — how it got started, why we started it.  It’s a book full of beautiful pictures, because my intent was that we would share the garden with the country and the world.  There are many people who don’t get a chance to visit Washington, come to the White House. But this is a way for people who are unable to come and see it in person to get a taste of what it’s all about, to see the beauty of it — to get some candid shots.

TJMS: It is very beautiful.

Mrs. Obama: But it’s also — we tell the story of other community gardens as well, all across the country.

Tom: Now, in some of these shots I noticed that Bo is posing with you.  And I was wondering if this was photoshopped, because if I remember that dog is kind of wild and I could just see a dog like Bo digging up all those rutabagas, the radishes.  (Laughter.)

Mrs. Obama: Actually, I think you misunderstand Bo. He is actually a very calm, peaceful dog.

TJMS: He calmed down?

Mrs. Obama: Well, he is an adult dog now. When you first saw him, he was a puppy.  And he is now four.  So he is really good with the garden.  He spends more time in the garden than me, because he actually goes out every day with the gardening team, the National Park Service people.  He is out there every day at work like he is one of the boys.

Tom: Is that right?

Mrs. Obama: He actually will not speak to me when he is with his fellas. He kind of looks over like, yo, mom, I’m working.  (Laughter.)  So he is very used to being around the garden. And he is really good.  He walks through the path. He doesn’t cut through the beds. He doesn’t dig up anything.

Tom: And your garden outfit is a little different from what I’m used to, but I’m from the country.

Mrs. Obama: But I am the First Lady.  (Laughter.)  I can’t just –

Tom:  You can’t put on the flop hat with the little visor and the gloves?  (Laughter.)

Mrs. Obama: I’ve got to be me. The truth is I dressed up a little bit for the photos. But in some of those, we’re harvesting with the kids you’ll see I’m wearing my jeans — my pants are rolled up, because I’m actually — when we plant, we plant.  We really do it. We’ve got kids who are really involved. They help us every planting season. We bring in kids from not just schools in the area, but we fly kids in from across the country who are doing great community gardens in their schools. Kids help us harvest, so every season when we harvest we bring a group of kids and we cook outside.

Tom:  What about your kids?

Mrs. Obama: My kids are just like any kids. Anything their parents are doing is completely uncool and uninteresting. (Laughter.) Now, there are millions of kids around the country who would love to spend time with me in the garden.  (Laughter.) Sasha and Malia are not among those children.

Sybil: Did you have a garden as a kid, growing up in Chicago?

Mrs. Obama: When I grew up, we lived in an apartment over my great aunt’s house, and she was a gardener. She didn’t grow vegetables, but she planted beautiful flowers every season. And it was our responsibility as the children in the house, we had to go out there and plant and weed and water the lawn. My brother mowed.

Tom: Gardening is hard work.  I don’t care if it’s vegetables, flowers.

Mrs. Obama: It takes patience and focus. And one of the things we do in the book is that we offer some tips for people who want to start their own garden.  The truth is I have a huge staff of people that help maintain this garden.  There is no way that I could individually do this.But we have stories of people who have planted container gardens on their back porches. They use raised beds on concrete in the schoolyards and they manage to make small plots.  And they can really get a lot of produce.  And that’s really ultimately what we’re trying — the story we’re trying to tell.  We’re trying to remind people of our history of gardening, particularly in our communities.

Mrs. Obama: Have you gardened, Tom?  Have you, Sybil?  Have you guys done any gardening?  Do you know that tradition?  Have you experienced that?

Sybil: I was telling Tom that growing up in Chicago, my dad had a vegetable garden in our backyard.

Tom: And where was he from?

Sybil: Arkansas.

Mrs. Obama: Well, everybody black in Chicago is from the south. That’s where our summer vacations were.  People on the east coast, they’re going up north. We went south. Everybody was like Mississippi, Alabama, South Carolina — that’s our heritage.

Sybil: All of us have that — absolutely right.

Mrs. Obama: And we need to get back to those roots, because that’s part of the challenge of our health. We’re getting away from fresh fruits and vegetables. We’re not incorporating that stuff in our meals. When we do, it’s not the freshest that it can be.  It costs too much. That’s one of the reasons why we’re seeing such high rates of childhood obesity.  And we need to reconnect ourselves, our kids and our communities to this whole gardening tradition. And it would go a long way to improving the health of our kids and our communities.

Sybil: This is going to be a great legacy you’re leaving behind.

Tom: Congratulations — “American Grown.”

Mrs. Obama: A great Mother’s Day gift!

Sybil: I was going to say that, absolutely.  (Laughter.)

Mrs. Obama: And 100 percent of the proceeds go to the National Park Foundation, to help support community gardens and to help maintain the legacy of the White House Garden.  So it’s a part of the White House forever, which is my hope.

Tom: Bless your gardenin’ heart.  (Laughter.)

Mrs. Obama: Happy Mother’s Day to all the mothers out there!

Roland Martin talks with Senator John Horn about the case of Mississippi death row inmate Willie Manning.

Tom and the crew can’t get enough of the Cleveland kidnapping case and the hero behind the women’s discovery, Charles Ramsey.

Sybil Wilkes discusses today’s news headlines including the latest on Charles Ramsey and former Gov. Sanford’s return to politics.

On April 17th, Cecile Kyenge was named Italy’s first black government Minister. Kyenge is Italy’s new Minister for Integration. She was born in the Congo and moved to Rome in the 1980’s to study medicine. While working at a hospital in Modena, Kyenge met her Italian husband who was a surgery patient in the hospital.

Kyenge was elected to Parliament in February. She is most recently noted for introducing a child citizenship law that would make immigrant kids born on Italian soil, citizens. Currently, the law states that children must have bloodlines of past Italian citizens in order to become citizens of Italy.

Kyenge hopes to change the immigration policies that effect a large population of the country.  For every five children born in the country, one is born to a foreign parent. These generations of children have been forced into lower-paying jobs that were rejected by citizens. The political argument of Italian citizenship by the new Minister has been fueled by growing racism in the streets of Italy.

Aside from the obvious discrimination, in 2002, the Italian government passed a law requiring all non-Italian residents to have their fingerprints recorded as part of the process for applying for residency.

Kyenge’s cabinet does not have a budget, though her main priority is balancing the budget to fix the country’s damaged economy.

(Photo: AP)

Two California researchers have developed a procedure using growth factors from a woman’s own blood, which appears to have markedly improved a woman’s sexual response.

The researchers, Drs. Samuel Wood and Charles Runels , are encouraged by preliminary results from this simple office procedure that involves the injection of the blood platelet-derived growth factors (PDGFs) into the upper wall of the vagina and clitoris.

Wood and Runels presented their findings at the annual meeting of the A4M, the largest biomedicine convention in the country.

Wood is a renowned reproductive endocrinologist, stem cell scientist and fertility specialist. Runels is a cosmetic physician, endocrinologist and expert in the treatment of diabetes.

“The most important factor in the success of this procedure is the correct placement of the injections,” Wood said at the conference. “When injected into an area distinct from the traditionally defined ‘G-Spot,’ the response has been surprising, robust and consistent.”

Wood said that he and Runels decided to name the injection site the “O-Spot” and have trademarked the procedure as the “O-Shot” or “Orgasm Shot.”

The doctors said accurately identifying the O-Spot is critical to determining whether a woman is able to achieve a vaginal orgasm, something that is experienced by fewer than 20 percent of women and that 40 percent of all women experience some form of sexual dysfunction during their lifetimes.

Wood and Runels recommended that patients get a complete physical before seeking the O-Shot to rule out any other problems. They said that more than 20 years of use of PDGFs for other health issues indicated that the injections are safe to use and can be administered with nothing more than a local anesthetic and is associated with only minimal discomfort.
The O-Shot, however, has not been approved for general use and Wood and Runels cautioned that the injections should be provided only as part of a clinical research trial.

“We recognize that this data is preliminary and must be confirmed by rigorous scientific research before making it widely available to patients,” Wood said. “We are now initiating a multicenter clinical trial to definitely examine the effectiveness of this procedure.”

The shot costs $1,500, which includes what Wood calls a “comprehensive sexual dysfunction assessment” to screen for other contributing factors, and it’s not covered by insurance, the Florida Sun-Sentinel reported in February.

Wood told The Sun-Sentinel said he is simultaneously conducting a double-blind, placebo-controlled study on the shot’s effectiveness that will be peer-reviewed, even though that is not required and the technique is not subject to approval by the Food and Drug Administration.

“I’m not going to be involved in something that is not actively researched. We want to be really sure about it,” Wood said, adding that one reason the technique is proprietary is to ensure that only those professionals with the proper credentials and training are offering it. “We don’t want someone to take a good procedure and give it a bad name by doing it incorrectly.”

Wood also said that early studies showed that pre-menopausal women had a higher improved response rate than post-menopausal women whose sexual dysfunction may be exacerbated by low estrogen levels and other age-related issues.

Click here for answers to your “Get Well Wednesday” questions.

This is Chris Paul from the TJMS running through the top stories in roughly sixty seconds with The Morning Minute.

Oh, no.  Lauryn Hill was sentenced to three months in prison for failing to pay her income taxes.  And when she gets out of prison she’s under house arrest for another three months.  Didn’t anyone teach Lauren that you don’t mess with the IRS?  If not then it was the mis-education of Lauryn Hill that lead to the miscalculation of Lauryn Hill, which in court explains the mis-explanation of Lauryn Hill and now the mis- incarceration of Lauryn Hill.

The website for the National Republican Congressional Committee was hacked on Sunday and the hackers made it redirect to links for erectile dysfunction drugs, like Viagra and Cialis.  I’m surprised anyone even notices those republicans in Congress are so damn hard headed.

Popular New York DJ Mister Cee broke his silence about his recent arrest.  Mister Cee says that it was not a male prostitute he was busted for soliciting, but a female.  Then he went on to say that he’s not gay, he just has a thing for hookers.  In fact, Mister Cee says, “I love prostitutes, that’s my freaking problem, and yeah, I buy the booty, that’s my freaking problem.  I love prostitutes, that’s my freaking problem, but only from the women, I ain’t no Jason Collins.”

Dr. Maya Angelou, one of the nation’s greatest national treasures appeared on the Tom Joyner Morning Show this morning to discuss her new book “Mom, Me and Mom.” It’s yet another of the sweeping series of autobiographical books that Angelou has released over the years, including her classic “I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings.”

Here in her own words, is the story behind her latest memoir:

My mother and my father sent me and my brother away when I was 3 and my brother was 5. They sent us by train from Los Angeles, CA to Stamps, Arkansas, which is about as big as your studio, without any adult supervision. We had tags on our arms and thanks to the goodness of the Pullman car porters and the dining car waiters, we were taken off certain trains and put on certain trains and we actually arrived in Stamps, Arkansas. It’s so hard to believe that sometimes we wonder did we even get there. We were taken to live with my grandmother, my father’s mother, and we stayed there for seven years.

At one point we were taken up to St. Louis to my mother. She had come back to be with her family and my mother’s boyfriend raped me. The man was put in jail overnight, and the police, two big white policemen, came to my mother’s mother’s house and they said the man had been found dead and it seemed he’d been kicked to death. I was 7 years old and I thought my voice had killed him. M brother said I had to tell him. I said ‘He said he would kill you,’ and my brother was nine and he said ‘I won’t let him.’ So of course I believed him and I told him and the man was put in jail. He was released and then killed. So somehow I figured that my voice could go out through a keyhole, through the window and through the door and kill people randomly.

I knew I couldn’t kill my brother because he loved me so much and I loved him so much that any curse wouldn’t work between us. So I spoke to him and he was the only person I spoke to for six years. I stayed with my mother’s people and they did their best to woo me away from my mutism but they didn’t know what I knew – what my voice could do. After a few months in St. Louis, Bailey and I, my brother and I, were sent back to Stamps, Arkansas, to Mama. You’d have to see Mama to see what a cozy and safe place she presented. When she died, Tom, she was over 6 foot and she spoke very softly. She had a huge voice in church. She would start to sing and people would fall out. They’d pick up their purses and throw them at the preacher. Mama could sing, but at home she spoke very softly.

She was a devout Christian. She didn’t allow hot dogs. She didn’t allow us to say “Hot dog!” That meant “damn.” We couldn’t say “By the way” because she said Jesus is the way, the truth and the light and when you say “By the way” you say by Jesus and you won’t use that language in this house. And yet she was so loving and you know, let me tell you, for instance. I didn’t speak and you know, but in the South, well, you don’t know, but when I was growing up, children were supposed to speak when they’re spoken to and come when they’re called. I didn’t speak and Mama didn’t force me to speak. She said ‘I don’t care what these people say about you must be a moron, you must be an idiot cause you can’t talk. Mama don’t care. Mama know when you and the Good Lord get ready, you gon’ be a teacher. You’re gonna teach all over this world.’

I tried to write this book 15 years ago but it wasn’t ready. I don’t say I wasn’t ready but the book wasn’t ready. I know so much more now than I did 15 years ago. I know this – that parents need, desperately, to be on the side of the child. The child needs to know my daddy backs me up, my mother backs me up in public. Now you can go home and chastise, but let the child know that you got a friend. The most powerful person in the world is your parent. And my parent is my friend, my parent thinks I’m the bee’s knees. Now if I do something wrong, my parent is going to chastise me, but he doesn’t hate me. And sometimes in today’s families, you see children in public with their parents and their parents talk to them like they hate them. I’m encouraging because I went through so much, I’m encouraging parents to look at this book and see that because of the love of my grandmother, my brother, and my mother, I became whatever is called Maya Angelou.

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