The caged bird sings of freedom: Maya Angelou’s anti-colonial journalism in the United Arab Republic and Ghana, 1961–1965

Abstract

At the height of the ‘global 1960s’, hundreds of African Americans moved to Africa in search of a refuge from racism and the opportunity to participate in anti-colonial politics. One of the most prominent figures in this movement was Maya Angelou. Nine years before the publication of her first book, Angelou lived in Egypt, then known as the United Arab Republic, where she worked as a writer, editor, and broadcaster at state-directed media institutions. She continued this work in Ghana, where her journalism and political writing situated the civil rights struggle in the United States within wider campaigns against racism and imperialism. Using previously unexamined documents from Angelou’s personal archive and surviving records of her political writing, this article sheds light on the role of African American activists in global anti-colonial networks and the challenges faced by radical journalists across the decolonizing world.