MAYA ANGELOU AND
MAY MILLER MUST NEVER BE
FORGOTTEN!!!

Celebrate their poetry, their contributions to the Harlem Renaissance, education, African American culture and their storytelling brilliance.

May was born in Washington, D.C. in 1899; Maya was born in 1928 in St. Louis, Missouri.  Both women were civil rights activists and  their extraordinary achievements as poets, playwrights and teachers reflect their dedication and commitment to the betterment of all Black lives.  

As we have seen recently all lives matter but these two pioneering black women understood the need to write about the pain of separation and loneliness and struggle and challenges which their race were forced to endure.  I think there is no better evidence than to read some of their magnificent and visionary work.
                                               THE WASHINGTONIAN
                                                        May Miller

Possessed of this city, we are born
into kinship with its people
Eyes that looked upon
Cool magnificence of space,
The calm of marble,
And green converging on green
In long distances,
Bear their wonder to refute
Meaningless dimensions,
The Old-World facades.

The city is ours irrevocably
As pain sprouts at the edge of joy,
As grief grows large with our years.
New seeds push hard to topsoil;
Logic is a grafted flower
From roots in a changeless bed.
Skeleton steel may shadow the path,
Broken stone snag the foot,
But we shall walk again
Side by side with others on the street,
Each certain of his way home.

(http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem236688)

                                                  STILL I RISE    
                                                  Maya Angelou

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 room.

Just like moons and like suns,
Withe 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.

Out of the huts of history's shame
I rise
Up rom 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....