Coming Home/Acceptance

One of the central themes of All God's Children Need Traveling Shoes is the idea of coming home to a place where one can find unconditional acceptance. For Maya Angelou, this meant finding a place where people did not discriminate against her because of the color of her skin. Although she found herself living in Ghana under accidental circumstances, Ms. Angelou found a place where everyone looked the same and where there was little discrimination against her simply for her skin color. Although Ms. Angelou did run into discrimination on occasion, mostly stemming from the fact that she was American and the Ghanaians had varying degrees of prejudice against her nationality, overall Ms. Angelou felt accepted in Ghana.

In addition to finding a lack of discrimination in Ghana, Ms. Angelou also sought a deeper sense of coming home from her adopted country. Ms. Angelou knew that...