Phenomenal Woman

As a personal friend and professional collaborator of 1960s political and cultural leaders like Malcolm X, religious leaders like Martin Luther King Jr., and novelists like James Baldwin, Angelou, too, was concerned with the position of Black people within American society. Angelou was involved with the US civil rights movement throughout the 1950s and 1960s, fighting against racial discrimination while advocating for nonviolent resistance. Like many other Black artists and scholars of the time, she also spent time in Africa and worked to trace her genetic and cultural roots. 

Angelou was also interested in fighting for the rights of Black women in particular. In the 1960s and 1970s, Black women were often excluded from Eurocentric ideas of beauty, portrayed as aesthetically inferior for not having light skin and straight hair. The Black is Beautiful movement—an extension of the larger civil rights movement—aimed to reframe aesthetic ideals, allowing Black women to embrace their appearance. 

“Phenomenal Woman” reflects this effort. The speaker notes the “span of my hips,” the “curl of my lips,” and the “bend of her hair” (Lines 7, 9, 54)—all descriptors that reference facial and bodily phenotypes associated with Black women. The emphasis is on the idea that these features are alluring and attractive, rather than something to be hidden or disavowed.