A poem by Maya Angelou

Watch Maya Angelou while she says her poem aloud to her audience :

Still I Rise

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 backyard.

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.

May 28, 2014 New York City’s Harlem Mourns, Cherishes Maya Angelou by Adam Phillips Poet, author and human rights activist Maya Angelou, who died Wednesday at the age of 86, was considered by many a literary giant. But to residents of Harlem, a largely African American New York neighborhood where she sometimes lived, the author of “Why The Caged Bird Sings” and other works is especially mourned.

While Maya Angelou received dozens of awards and honorary degrees, she came from the humblest of beginnings in the racially segregated South - having worked as a streetcar conductor, fry cook and calypso performer among other jobs during her youth.

On a city bus riding through Harlem, Rayna Clay-Cuffee remembered Angelou from a half century ago, when they were both nightclub singers.

"And then the years went by, and then I was there when she spoke at the inauguration for [President] Clinton," she said. "So she’s been around a long time. She’s a wonderful woman, extremely intelligent, and she used her intelligence for the world."

Joanathan, who also was riding the bus, admired Angelou for her wisdom and compassion. He said that while her writing often expressed the challenges she and other African Americans faced in their struggle for equality, she felt an underlying bond to all peoples.

“And they can coexist in one. People always make the mistake of saying ‘that race did that’ or ‘that one ain’t no good.’ But we are one human race. And that’s what she understood," said Joanathan.

On 125th Street, Harlem’s busy main thoroughfare, “Lord Harrison,” a hip hop artist, sold his CDs to passersby. He credited Maya Angelou’s poetry and public acclaim with helping to pioneer his musical genre.

“She paved the way ! Without her doing her thing and opening the way and ‘bustin’ with the moves,’ as we like to say, hip hop wouldn’t be invented. It wouldn’t have happened. She did it ! She is a true American icon," he said.​​

Nearby, the marquee of the famed Apollo Theater, where the Jackson Five, James Brown, Aretha Franklin and other stars played, noted in big black letters Maya Angelou’s passing.

In-house historian Billy Mitchell, who has worked there for 49 years, remembers meeting her.

“What a regal lady she was ! Very graceful. That beautiful smile. ‘How are you, ​ ​​young man ?’ I could have melted right there," he said. "Because I meet so many people here and there are just a few that really make me feel a little strange and giddy and groupie-like. And she was one of those people that did that for me, absolutely. ​"We all adored Maya. Her words made us feel proud. She understood our struggle. She understood what it was like to be poor and to be hungry and she made something of herself. Young kids are still reciting her poetry : ‘and still I rise. I rise. I rise.’"

Plans for Maya Angelou’s funeral have not been released. http://www.voanews.com/content/new-...