[MUSIC PLAYING]
OPRAH WINFREY: In Maya Angelou's latest book,
she shares the deepest personal story
of her life, the relationship with her mother, Vivian Baxter.
A former nurse who ran her own gambling club, pool hall,
and boarding house, Vivian Baxter
could be as fiery as she was nurturing.
Their relationship, like a lot of mother-daughters,
was powerful, but complicated.
When seven-year-old Maya stopped speaking,
Vivian sent Maya and her brother,
Bailey away to live with their grandmother
in rural Stamps, Arkansas.
Then when Maya turned 13, Vivian called Maya and Bailey home
to San Francisco.
At that time, Maya began to truly get
to know her mother, independent and energetic,
shrewd and gutsy.
Vivian Baxter was someone to be reckoned with.
You've written a new book.
I know.
"Mom, and Me, and Mom."
And we're going to talk a lot about
that today because I know what Vivian
Baxter meant in your life.
And you say that your mother's love encouraged you
to live your life with pizzazz.
Yes.
Would you say that you've had a life filled with pizzazz?
Yes, I have.
You have such a long list of achievements,
as we were compiling them.
You were the first Black streetcar conductor
in the city of San Francisco.
I was 16.
OPRAH WINFREY: You were 16.
MAYA ANGELOU: Yes, I was Black, 16, and had the nerve to--
I saw women on the streetcars with their little change
of belts, that.
And they had caps with bills on them.
And they had form fitting jackets.
You liked the uniforms?
I loved the uniforms.
[LAUGHTER]
So I said that's the job I want.
And-- and--
They never hired a Black person?
They had never, no.
So did you see that as the accomplishment
that it was at the time?
No, my mother did because mother--
I said-- I went down to place an application,
and they wouldn't even give it to me.
And so I went back to my mother, and I said,
they wouldn't even allow me to apply.
She asked me, why?
Do you know why?
I said yes, because I'm a Negro.
She said, yes, but do you want the job?
I said, yes.
She said, go get it.
Here, I'll give you money.
Every day, you go down.
Be there before the secretaries get there.
You sit there in the office.
You read one of your big, thick Russian books.
I was reading Dostoevsky and Tolstoy
or something at that time.
She said, and then when they go to lunch, then you go.
Go to a good restaurant.
You know how to order good food.
Go back before the secretaries get there.
| did all of that and then sit there until they leave.
They laughed at me.
They pushed out their lips and used
some negative racial things.
But I sat there.
At 16?
Yes, but look here.
Here is the thing.
I sat there because I was afraid to go home.
[LAUGHTER]
I was afraid to tell my mother that I wasn't
as strong as she thought I was.
OPRAH WINFREY: Wow.
So I sat there for two weeks every day.
And then after two weeks, a man came out of his office.
He said, come in.
And he asked me, why do you want the job?
I said, I like the uniforms.
[LAUGHTER]
And I said and I like people.
And so I got the job.
Amazing.
What's amazing is the story that you tell in "Mom and Me"
of your mother, knowing that you're a 16-year-old
on the streetcars and that she followed you in her--
you tell the story.
About 4:00 in the morning, she wakes me
up with my bath already drawn.
I'd take a bath, put on my uniform.
And she would drive me out to the beach.
And she had her pistol on the seat of the car.
And she would follow the streetcar
all the way from the beach down to the Ferry Building
right through San Francisco and back again out to the beach
until daybreak, I mean, stayed close,
so that nobody got on that she didn't see.
And then at 6:30 or 7:00--
That's a mother. MAYA ANGELOU: She's a mother.
That's a mother.
She was really all of that.
And she asked me--
she said now, what did you learn from that job?
Because when it was time for me to go back to school,
I went back to school.
I said I learned that I don't--
I like to work.
She said, what else did you learn?
I said, I don't know.
She said about yourself, you learned
that you're very strong, that determination, dedication--
and you can go anywhere in the world, anywhere.
And I've gone everywhere in the world.