Q&A on Maya Angelou’s 'Champion of the World'

Maya Angelou has wrote a quite a meaningful story about her grandmother Annie Johnson about her life and having a turning point and everything changed. It all starts by having a huge conflict about splitting her marriage in 1903 and ended she later became fully aware on what she put herself into. There for Annie Johnson and African-American women has to work her hardest in order to help her two small boys and make harder choices in life. According to the text on paragraph seven it states “Although business was slow, those first days Annie was determined. She balanced her appearances between the two hours of activity.” This explains how Annie was dealing with some conflits. There are more conflicts but a successful ending into the next story “Rikki-Tikki-Tavi”.

   The narrator in "Battle Royal," by Ralph Ellison, is confused and disillusioned. He is black man trapped in a world of cruelty and social inequality with nobody to guide him. He is being ripped apart in two directions by the advice of his grandfather and by the wishes of the white society which he longs to please. While attempting to satisfy their wishes, he forgets what is most important- his own dignity.

Angelou then continues to tell the story using imagery of the crowd's reaction to the announcer's voice. The line “In the Store the crowd grunted” (par. 6), gives a great image of the group's general reaction before the fight quickly continues. Angelou continues to giving the crowds reaction after each line the announcer blares (par. 7-11). The fight then takes a quick break for ads. The announcer declared the break by giving a formal acknowledgment to the audience (par. 12). By doing so, Angelou “… wondered if the announcer gave any

     Growing up in the north, and being white, we were taught in school what the conditions were in the south and all over America for blacks. I never really thought much of it, like many kids my age, because it never affected me. I’ve been told by teachers, speakers, and whoever else my school would bring in to tell us about what it was like for blacks back in the 1940’s and the 1950’s. After I read the book, Coming of Age in Mississippi, I realized what it was really like

Maya Angelou is a leading literary voice of the African-American community. She writes of the triumph of the human spirit over hardship and adversity. “Her style captures the ca-dences and aspirations of African American women whose strength she celebrates.” (Library of Chattanooga State, n. d.) Maya has paved the way for children who has had a damaged

Most young black American’s believed that they couldn’t become successful in this nation full of oppression. On average, black family’s earned half the income of whites and were twice as likely to be unemployed. Hope of becoming successful for a young black American was grim. Fortunately, one thing

Born in St. Louis, Missouri, at only eight years old she was sent to work in the service and experienced hostile actions and abuse. At age eleven she encountered a race riot in which forty black and eight white people were killed. Later she left home and scavenged for food and attempted to earn what little money she could by dancing on the streets, where she was recruited for the chorus line in St. Louis vaudeville. At fifteen she began performing in

The literary works “Indian Education” by Sherman Alexie and “Champion of the World” by Maya Angelou both contribute to the very prevalent subject of cultural pride and diversity. However, each author strives to attain this common result through different rhetorical techniques. Angelou narrates a memory of watching African American Joe Louis win a televised boxing match, with the goal of exhibiting the steadfast conviction of African Americans in the face of discrimination. She attempts to provide a heightened sense of realism in “Champion of the World” through her use of colloquial dialect and rather informal style, which allow for a much more comprehensible work. Alexie writes about his experiences from his first grade year to graduation, using them to illustrate for his audience the hardships in the lives of Native Americans both on and off reservations. He creates a somber effect in “Indian Education” through formal diction and a rigid organization of content. The arrangement of his narrative into sections causes it to appear both orderly and understandable for his audience. Although both works achieve the similar goal of communicating the struggle of minorities, the use of specific rhetorical techniques give each work an entirely different effect.

Part of the begining conflict was for Joe to find out that he was really hurt and what actually happened to him.

The troubles for African Americans traces back to a period where nothing was a privilege nor was granted. Throughout my readings it is difficult to justify the accurate meanings of how the individuals in each reading felt. As I kept to my readings I discovered what African Americans’ spirit, money, education, and liberty meant to them. At time’s their spirits would rise in optimism to a grand life for them and their loved one’s, but it being problematic with the prejudice whites who kept knocking them down. Their financials were no better as to being paid little or slim to none. If fortunate enough to make a couple of cents for the hours of hard labored days that passed for the African American’s. Education was foreign to blacks as the whites

Mrs.Flowers is everything that embodies a poised, powerful, and bold, southern African American women in Maya’s life. She is looked at as a mentor to Maya through a period in her young life. As an educated and wealthy women, everyone aspires to be her, especially Maya. Bertha Flowers introduces Maya to the importance of education with books and the introduction of sociable relations with others. The gravity of how much Mrs.Flowers means to Maya can only be explained in this interaction were Maya gushes, “ She was one of the few gentle women I have ever known, and has remained throughout my life the measure of what a human being can be (Caged Bird 92). We can see that Angelou recalls even from her childhood and now to adulthood in writing this book that Mrs.Flowers has truly changed her life with a goal of someone she can aspire to be one day. If we follow this relationship further we can see how Mrs. Flowers has been her saving grace, following her rape she has given Maya an outlet to find her voice. This outlet is reading, she gives Maya books on top of books to read, but the catch is that Maya must read every book, every paragraph , every word out loud. Maya struggles immensely with this predicament, but learns that it is much easier reading someone else's words first and then formulating your own won’t be so burdensome.

It’s disappointing to see that the black communities see themselves as inferior than the caucasians. A small group of African Americans from the nineteenth hundreds support Joe Louis, a heavyweight boxer who must fight a white contender to reserve his title “Champion of the world,” and demonstrate to his own people that African Americans are in fact superior than the white men and women. However, Joe’s loss would bring a great misfortune and humiliation to the black communities. In Chaption of the World, Maya Angelou believes that it's better to fight to earn respect than live under persecution, discrimination and humiliation.

Even with Maya being a young child, she knows that this fight is not only just about boxing but a symbol of finally a fight back against the inferiority that has been placed upon the black American by the white society of America. This fight was the battle and struggle that African-Americans have had to go through for decades. She describes this by stating “yet another Black man hanging on a tree,” showing a unified moment in history that finally allowed Americans to see that blacks “were the strongest people in the world.” (

Today, the African American community has a very definitive, restrictive singular story, and though this story might be correct about some members of the community, it is not for others. Adichie reminds us that the African American stereotype and singular story, although possibly true, is very incomplete and makes one story become the only story about a group of people. Personally, I have been lucky enough to have experienced many different social and economic situations, and in every place I have been, I have met many different African Americans. Not once have I encountered an African American who were the same and who definitely fit their singular story.

When Mcgregor would have the microphone, he would be trash talking to Mayweather face. Mayweather would sit up straight and wait his turn to talk. When it was Mayweather turn he would trash talk back, but smile at the end. Saturday night, August 26 ,in Las Vegas the day came for both fighters which they have been preparing for. Both of them threw punches to the face and bodies in the 1st round through the 9th round. When it came the 10th round Mayweather started to realize how Mcgregor was fighting. Mayweather switched his position to perform better punches which lead to knockout Mcgregor to the ground. After the celebration from Mayweather and his team members. An announcer ask Mayweather “When you look back what do you want people to remember Floyd Mayweather by?” Mayweather responds was “Well just know I went out 50-0, and in my last fight I gave them a bang.” What he meant by “bang” is that his goal has finally been accomplished. This speech from him made me look back on my goals and how far I have accomplished them as