Champion of the World
Maya Angelou
“Champion of the World” is the nineteenth chapter in
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
; the title is a
phrase taken from the chapter. Remembering her own childhood, the writer tells us how she and her
older brother, Baile
y, grew up in a
town
in Arkansas. The center of their lives was Grandmother and
Uncle Willie’s store, a gathering place for the black community. On the night when this story takes
place, Joe Louis, the “Brown Bomber” and the hero of his people, defends h
is heavyweight boxing title
against a white contender. Angelou’s telling of the event both entertains us and explains what it was
like to be African American in a certain time and place.
The last inch of space was filled, yet people continued to wedge
themselves along the walls of
the Store. Uncle Willie had turned the radio up to its last notch so that youngsters on the porch
wouldn’t miss a word. Women sat on kitchen chairs, dining
-
room chairs, stools, and upturned wooden
boxes. Small children and
babies perched on every lap available and men leaned on the shelves or on
each other.
The apprehensive mood was shot through with shafts of
gaiety
, as a black sky is streaked with
lightning.
“I ain’t worried ‘bout this fight. Joe’s gonna whip that
cracker like it’s open season.”
“He gone whip him till that white boy call him Momma.”
At last the talking finished and the string
-
along songs about razor blades were over and the fight
began.
“A quick jab to the head.” In the Store the crowd gr
unted. “A left to the head and a right and
another left.” One of the listeners cackled like a hen and was quieted.
“They’re in a clinch, Louis is trying to fight his way out.”
Some bitter comedian on the porch said, “That white man don’t mind hugg
ing that n_____ now, I
betcha.”
“The referee is moving in to break them up, but Louis finally pushed the contender away and it’s
an uppercut to the chin. The contender is hanging on, now he’s backing away. Louis catches him with
a short left to the j
aw.”
A tide of murmuring assent poured out the door and into the yard.
“Another left and another left. Louis is saving that mighty right . . .” The mutter in the store had
grown into a baby roar and it was pierced by the clang of a bell and the a
nnouncer’s “That’s the bell
for round three, ladies and gentlemen.”
As I pushed my way into the Store I wondered if the announcer gave any thought to the fact that he
was addressing as “ladies and gentlemen” all the Negroes around the world who sat swe
ating and
praying, glued to their “Master’s voice.”
1
There were only a few calls for RC Colas, Dr Peppers, and Hires root beer. The real festivities
would begin after the fight. Then even the old Christian ladies who taught their children and tried
t
hemselves to practice turning the other cheek would buy soft drinks, and if the Brown Bomber’s
victory was a particularly bloody one they would order peanut patties and Baby Ruths also
.
Bailey and I laid the coins on top of the cash register. Uncle Wi
llie didn’t allow us to ring up sales
during a fight. It was too noisy and might shake up the atmosphere. When the gong rang for the next
round we pushed through the near
-
sacred quiet to the herd of children outside.
“He’s got Louis against the rope
s and now it’s a left to the body and a right to the ribs. Another
right to the body, it looks like it was low . . . Yes, ladies and gentlemen, the referee is signaling but
the contender keeps raining the blows on Louis. It’s another to the body, and i
t looks like Louis is
going down.”
My race groaned. It was our people falling. It was another lynching, yet another Black man
hanging on a tree. One more woman ambushed and raped. A Black boy whipped and maimed. It was
hounds on the trail of a man
running through slimy swamps. It was a white woman slapping her maid
for being forgetful.
The men in the Store stood away
from
the walls and at attention. Women greedily clutched the
babes on their laps while on the porch the shufflings and smiles,
flirtings and pinchings of a few
minutes before were gone. This might be the end of the world. If Joe lost we were back in slavery and
beyond help. It would all be true; the accusations that we were lower types of human beings. Only a
little higher tha
n apes. True that we were stupid and ugly and lazy and dirty and unlucky and worst of
all, that God himself hated us and ordained us to be
hewers
of wood and drawers of water, forever and
ever, world without end.
We didn’t breathe. We didn’t hope. W
e waited.
“He’s off the ropes, ladies and gentlemen. He’s moving towards the corner of the ring.” There
was no time to be relieved. The worst might still happen
.
1
“His master’s
voice,” accompanied by a picture of a little dog listening to a phonograph, was a familiar advertising slogan.
(The picture still spears on some RCA recordings.)
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