This essay examines Maya Angelou’s 1980 memoir All God’s Children Need Traveling Shoes. From 1962 to 1965, Angelou was part of a community of African American writers, artists, intellectuals, and activists who settled in Ghana as its first president, Kwame Nkrumah, seemed poised to usher in a new era of pan-African unity. Hoping to situate her identity within this dream of global pan-Africanism, Angelou narrates her relationship to Africa through the trope of diaspora-as-family. Her use of this metaphor, however, is complicated by her growing awareness of the involvement of Africans in the trans-Atlantic slave trade, as both victims and participants. While other scholarship on All God’s Children focuses on Angelou’s supposed inability to achieve a diasporan identity, I argue that Angelou is successfully able to come to terms with the trauma of the middle passage by listening to the “voices” of her enslaved ancestors (as they emerge within her own consciousness), and participating in an indigenous Ewe mourning ritual that she inadvertently precipitates. As a result of these experiences, Angelou comes to realize that while narration is important to the formation of both identity and community, African-descended people living in the Americas must first grapple with a historical trauma that exceeds the limits of narration. It is only when Angelou realizes this that she allows herself to be receptive to the spectral voices of her enslaved ancestors and the power of mourning to forge community across divides of time and place.

中文翻译：

---

“我们既不能接受也不可以拒绝的历史：在玛雅·安杰卢的《全神的孩子们需要旅行的鞋子》中喂养和净化精神”

本文研究了玛雅·安杰卢（Maya Angelou）1980年的回忆录《所有上帝的孩子们需要旅行鞋》。从1962年到1965年，安杰卢加入了非裔美国作家，艺术家，知识分子和激进主义者社区，他们定居加纳担任第一任总统夸梅·恩克鲁玛（Kwame Nkrumah），似乎准备迎来一个泛非洲统一的新时代。为了在全球泛非洲主义的梦想中树立自己的身份，安杰卢通过散居海外的家庭讲述了她与非洲的关系。但是，由于她越来越意识到非洲人作为受害者和参与者都参与跨大西洋奴隶贸易，使她对这种隐喻的使用变得复杂。虽然关于“所有上帝的孩子”的其他奖学金都集中在安杰卢被认为无法获得移民身份的同时，我认为，安杰卢能够通过聆听被奴役的祖先的“声音”（当它们出现在她自己的意识中），并成功参加了中途受伤的痛苦，并参加了她不经意间进行的母羊哀悼仪式沉淀。这些经验的结果是，安杰卢意识到，叙事对于身份和社区的形成很重要，而生活在美洲的非洲裔人必须首先努力克服超越叙事极限的历史创伤。只有当Angelou意识到这一点时，她才可以接受自己被奴役的祖先的残酷声音和哀悼的力量，以跨越时间和地点的分歧建立社区。