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.

Maya Angelou

These are the best of men, and I will not shrink this image to fit into my website.

Martin Luther King, Jr. died 40 years ago today as he helped black sanitation workers in Memphis strike for fair wages, fair working conditions, dignity and human rights. The signs reading “I am a Man” became an iconic symbol of the cause for which Dr. King and many others died.

The photograph above was taken by Ernest Withers, a civil rights photographer who passed away in 2007.

rootwork the rootsblog memorializes Ernest Withers:

legendary memphis photographer and
chronicler of the civil rights movement

irascible elder in his legendary kufi
everytime i see him he ask about my mama

they were about the same age same era,
racemen and racewomen from the oldschool

baba withers did a lot of legendary photos
but i think the one that mean the most to me

was one of the garbage workers strike in 68
my first real campaign in the struggle

my mama had me and my sisters out there on
picketlines, sitins and such since we was old enuf

to wear a sign

but it was the garbage workers strike and the
subsequent death of martin luther king that

turn me out
made me a conscious warrior

Sanitationstrikewhithersthe iconic sign of that struggle
was the garbagemens ‘i am a man’ picketsigns

and baba withers he got this shot of the garbage workers
with their i am a man signs straddling the street

move me to this day

baba ernest withers
1922 - 2007 - well done

in struggle
rdoc

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