I'm not normally going to be writing posts on here more than once a week, or even once a month, but today is an exception. For the rest of my life, I don't think I will ever forget the night I heard Maya Angelou speak.
All day there was a buzz about campus. Texts were flying around, teachers were promoting the event and everyone was asking, "are you gonna see Maya tonight?" And so I went. We waited in the Holmes Convocation Center for an hour and a half with classmates, professors, community members and people who were driving in from out of town on this freezing tuesday evening to see one of the greatest poets of all time. And boy, did she show up.
Maya Angelou was raped by her mother's boyfriend when she was seven years old. After she spoke up about it, he was sentenced to one day in jail, and then he was released. The next day, he was found kicked to death on the street. For six years after that Maya went mute. She didn't speak because she thought her words brought death to people. When she told us this, I almost couldn't stay in my chair because I wanted to walk, no I wanted to run up to her and say "your words bring life!" Even though there were thousands of people there, I felt like it was just Maya and me (in my world, we're on a first name basis) sitting in a little room in two armchairs next to a fire, and she was pouring out her soul in the most beautifully charismatic way. For the hour she spoke, her words sank into my heart and I could see the little girl in her. But this little girl wasn't weak or helpless. No, she had a Lion Heart. She had won the victory over fear and there was no man who could break her spirit or her body any more. And just when I thought it couldn't get any better, she pulled out her journal.
"You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.
Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
'Cause I walk like I've got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.
Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I'll rise.
Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops.
Weakened by my soulful cries.
Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don't you take it awful hard
'Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines
Diggin' in my own back yard.
You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I'll rise.
Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I've got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?
Out of the huts of history's shame
I rise
Up from a past that's rooted in pain
I rise
I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise. "
On the last "I rise," this little old black woman in a wheelchair shot her fist up into the air and the crowd erupted. The whole place was nuts and our collective joy couldn't be contained. On this night, Maya was the most perfect depiction of restoration and revival that I have ever seen. She was so beautiful to me. And that 's when my stomach churned with a newfound understanding of what Dr. Martin Luther King meant when he said, "I have a dream."
You see, Dr. King had no fear in his heart the day before he died. If you watch his speech you can just tell that in that moment he had left this earth and he truly did not fear any man. Dr. King's heart was too big, and his courage flooded the fearful minds of those who wanted to suppress him. He didn't die because he was murdered. He died because this earth, this temporary playground of confusion, couldn't contain his spirit any longer. Dr. King gives me the freedom every day to dream that maybe, just maybe I will see a change in this world over my lifetime. Maybe I know the next Mother Teresa or the next Mahatma Gandhi. Maybe the little boy I sponsor will grow up to change his village and then his country. Maybe I'll grow old and I'll never have to say "when I was young and hopeful about the world" because the world won't be able to suck the childlike spirit from my veins anymore.
On this day after I have remembered Martin Luther King and listened to Maya speak truth into my life, I know for certain that there is a place in our spirit where fear does not exist. I have seen courage incarnate in human flesh and I have prospered from the fruits of bold thinking and brave action by both Dr. King and Dr. Angelou and I know that our liberty is bound up together.
Thank you, Dr. King and Dr. Angelou. Because of your example, all of us will continue to dream and we will always RISE.
All day there was a buzz about campus. Texts were flying around, teachers were promoting the event and everyone was asking, "are you gonna see Maya tonight?" And so I went. We waited in the Holmes Convocation Center for an hour and a half with classmates, professors, community members and people who were driving in from out of town on this freezing tuesday evening to see one of the greatest poets of all time. And boy, did she show up.
Maya Angelou was raped by her mother's boyfriend when she was seven years old. After she spoke up about it, he was sentenced to one day in jail, and then he was released. The next day, he was found kicked to death on the street. For six years after that Maya went mute. She didn't speak because she thought her words brought death to people. When she told us this, I almost couldn't stay in my chair because I wanted to walk, no I wanted to run up to her and say "your words bring life!" Even though there were thousands of people there, I felt like it was just Maya and me (in my world, we're on a first name basis) sitting in a little room in two armchairs next to a fire, and she was pouring out her soul in the most beautifully charismatic way. For the hour she spoke, her words sank into my heart and I could see the little girl in her. But this little girl wasn't weak or helpless. No, she had a Lion Heart. She had won the victory over fear and there was no man who could break her spirit or her body any more. And just when I thought it couldn't get any better, she pulled out her journal.
"You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.
Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
'Cause I walk like I've got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.
Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I'll rise.
Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops.
Weakened by my soulful cries.
Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don't you take it awful hard
'Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines
Diggin' in my own back yard.
You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I'll rise.
Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I've got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?
Out of the huts of history's shame
I rise
Up from a past that's rooted in pain
I rise
I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise. "
On the last "I rise," this little old black woman in a wheelchair shot her fist up into the air and the crowd erupted. The whole place was nuts and our collective joy couldn't be contained. On this night, Maya was the most perfect depiction of restoration and revival that I have ever seen. She was so beautiful to me. And that 's when my stomach churned with a newfound understanding of what Dr. Martin Luther King meant when he said, "I have a dream."
You see, Dr. King had no fear in his heart the day before he died. If you watch his speech you can just tell that in that moment he had left this earth and he truly did not fear any man. Dr. King's heart was too big, and his courage flooded the fearful minds of those who wanted to suppress him. He didn't die because he was murdered. He died because this earth, this temporary playground of confusion, couldn't contain his spirit any longer. Dr. King gives me the freedom every day to dream that maybe, just maybe I will see a change in this world over my lifetime. Maybe I know the next Mother Teresa or the next Mahatma Gandhi. Maybe the little boy I sponsor will grow up to change his village and then his country. Maybe I'll grow old and I'll never have to say "when I was young and hopeful about the world" because the world won't be able to suck the childlike spirit from my veins anymore.
On this day after I have remembered Martin Luther King and listened to Maya speak truth into my life, I know for certain that there is a place in our spirit where fear does not exist. I have seen courage incarnate in human flesh and I have prospered from the fruits of bold thinking and brave action by both Dr. King and Dr. Angelou and I know that our liberty is bound up together.
Thank you, Dr. King and Dr. Angelou. Because of your example, all of us will continue to dream and we will always RISE.
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