Maya Angelou on Belonging, Freedom & Travel

Maya Angelou linked freedom to a deeper sense of belonging—not to one place, but to an inner home you can carry anywhere. Here’s the exact quote, the fact-check, what travel meant to her, and why it still matters for how we move through the world.

“You only are free when you realize you belong no place — you belong every place — no place at all. The price is high. The reward is great.”

Angelou said these words in a televised conversation with Bill Moyers on November 21, 1973. The transcript is available via BillMoyers.com.

What she meant by “no place / every place”

Angelou wasn’t praising rootlessness. She was naming an inner freedom: when you belong first to yourself, you can move through many places without being reduced by any one of them. In the same interview, when Moyers asked “Do you belong anywhere?”, she replied, “I haven’t yet… I belong to myself.” She also said the first time she felt she belonged somewhere was in Ghana, where rhythms reminded her of the American South. BillMoyers.com

A life in motion (travel milestones)

• 1954–55 — On tour: Featured in a State-Department–sponsored Porgy and Bess production, touring 22 countries in Europe and Africa.

• 1961–62 — Cairo: Associate editor at The Arab Observer, an English-language weekly.

• 1962–65 — Accra: Lived in Ghana, part of a community of African-American returnees; later wrote about this period in All God’s Children Need Traveling Shoes (1986).

How travel shaped her ethics

“Perhaps travel cannot prevent bigotry, but by demonstrating that all peoples cry, laugh, eat, worry, and die, it can introduce the idea that if we try and understand each other, we may even become friends.” —Wouldn’t Take Nothing for My Journey Now (1993).

Angelou treats travel as empathy training. It doesn’t erase prejudice overnight, but it widens recognition of our shared human needs. That’s why she kept returning to travel as a practical school for wisdom.

Home, belonging, and the inner place you carry

“The ache for home lives in all of us—the safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned.” —All God’s Children Need Traveling Shoes (1986).

This line balances “every place” with an inner home. Even global citizens need a space—inside or in community—where dignity isn’t questioned. (Readers meet that tension throughout her Ghana memoir.)

Angelou’s perspective in one glance

• Existential: Freedom starts with self-belonging (“I belong to myself”).

• Social: Travel broadens empathy—a nudge against bigotry.

• Emotional: We still long for home—a place (or practice) where we are not questioned.

Why it matters now

In a world arguing over borders and identity, Angelou’s formula—self-belonging + border-crossing empathy + an inner home—is a practical ethic for travelers, migrants, and hosts. It invites us to move with humility and build communities where more people can “go as they are and not be questioned.

Sources & further reading

• A Conversation with Maya Angelou (Bill Moyers, 1973) — transcript: https://billmoyers.com/content/conversation-maya-angelou/ BillMoyers.com

• Britannica: Maya Angelou — Porgy and Bess tour: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Maya-Angelou Encyclopedia Britannica

• Academy of American Poets: Cairo & Accra roles: https://poets.org/poet/maya-angelou Home

• Angelou (1993): Wouldn’t Take Nothing for My Journey Now — travel/bigotry quote noted by Big Think with page ref. Big Think

• Angelou (1986): All God’s Children Need Traveling Shoes — Ghana memoir & “ache for home” line. Wikipedia

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