Maya Angelou, who was a writer and Civil Rights activist, inspired thousands of people through her many different literature pieces. She’s most famous for her groundbreaking work I Know Why the Caged Bird Sing; due to the book’s enormous success, Angelou was the first African-American woman who had a bestseller in American history (Biography Editors 1). The era she was raised in, Maya faced prejudice and severe discrimination when living in Arkansas (Biography Editors 1). With her painful past, she wrote numerous novels, poems, and short stories about Civil Rights, which, ultimately, lead her to be the primary influence on the Civil Rights Movement with Martin Luther King (Biography Editors 1). After MLK had been assassinated, Angelou decided to dedicate her life to produce literature pieces that could provide comfort for women and African Americans (Biography Editors 1). One of her poems, Still I Rise, made a tremendous impact on the individuals who dealt with the racism that era pushed for. That poem has, not only, influenced people struggling with the racism during the 1960s, but the poem can help anyone from any generation due to Angelou’s diction, which proves to be the genius of this piece specifically. The tone in this poem depicts a guiding and comforting attitude. The phrases Angelou uses, like “still I rise,” to cause the effect of comfortableness. Throughout the poem, Angelou questions the reader with vague issues that most people can interpret individually. Since Maya Angelou helped Martin Luther King protest, Angelou’s diction of the word “rise” gives immediate action to start protesting more with more force during the riots of the Civil Rights Era to achieve rights for women and African-Americans. 

    Since Maya Angelou is well known for her Civil Right contributions, this poem obviously helps the African-Americans during that racist era (Biography Editors 1). At the beginning of the poem, on the first stanza, Angelou writes, 

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 rise (Angelou 1.1-4).

This first stanza fills itself with aggression. This persuasive writing sends a message to the protestors to understand how confident the ending is going to be. Specifically how white people, during the 60s and 70s, attacked, judged, and belittled blacks for being their skin tone. She states how people can write lies about the protestors and hurtful things, but they will know the truth, and that is all that matters. Someone can threaten her life and her career, but she knows that she will overcome the lies and she will succeed. She does this empowering mechanism because she dealt with this before (Biography Editors, 1). In her lifetime, she’s had to deal with racists and misogynists tell her horrible things that could destroy her morality. However, she knew that no one could damage that. She would always rise above the hatred. Since the entire first stanza is one sentence, the tone has a more positive meaning behind it. Almost like, she’s thought about it before and only needs one breath to complete it. According to Anthony Creek-King, who answers questions from an interviewer about Maya Angelou, Mr. Trecek-King describes how impactful Angelou was, “A substantial amount of music from many eras, genres, and sources has been written relating to civil rights and social justice, much of which would make an excellent choice to include in a concert celebration of Martin Luther King” (Choral Journal, 12). Trecek-King understood how important literature was for the Civil Rights Era. Maya took writing to her advantage when trying to send a message. The message Maya was trying to send in her poem was to be more aggressive. She knows that the right about of aggression would do wonders for the movement, but the movement never reached her standards of force. In particular, the word “rise” is such an aggressive word in that poem. The majority of her words are very calm and relax; however, the word "rise" gives affirmative action. It’s a verb that has force behind it. Thus, proving how Maya wanted more force in the protests during the movement.   

Her second stanza is more verbally attacking the individual personally affecting Maya. She explains how successful she is, “Cause I walk like I’ve got oil wells / Pumping in my living room” (Angelou). Owning oil wells is only occupied with people with money. So, when she says “I’ve got oil wells / Pumping in my living room” (Angelou), it implies that she’s successful. Since, in the 1960s-1770s most of the African Americans and women, in general, are not a success on their own. An African American, who've achieved their success on her own, acts an excellent role model for African Americans and women. In today’s culture, there’s still a stereotype that women and cannot achieve great things on their own. Take the election of 2016 for example. Some people thought Hillary was not a selective leader because of her gender. Maya is a case of a female who broke that stereotype. Janet quotes, “There are no barriers of color or gender when it comes to Dr. Angelou” (Janet 26). Janet explains how Maya broke bars of sex and color by skyrocketing to the most successful African American woman author in American’s history by herself (Janet 26). Again, Janet acknowledges, “The poems of hers that impacted me the deepest are “Phenomenal Woman” which I recited in the film, and “Still I Rise. The empowering truth of them resonates with all women” (Janet 26). Here, Janet describes how empowering Still I Rise is. She highlights specifically how strongly connected she felt with this poem. She explains, in her interview, how she’s never felt so capacitate before in her entire life (Janet, 26). After the second stanza, there’s, even more, empowerment through her diction. 

Stanza eight is the most symbolic verse discussing the black history and the struggles that culture faces. Angelou thinks, 

Out of the huts of history’s shame / I rise / Up from the past that’s rooted in pain / I rise / I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide, / Welling and swelling I bear in the tide (Angelou). 

Clearly, this is about the black history and the difficulties they faced. The central situation she is talking about is slavery. When she writes, “Out of the huts of history’s shame” she talks about how no one is proud of slavery. No one, in this generation, and in the generation Maya was growing up in, was proud of slavery. It was a morality issue that people learned over the generations to hate. Another problem she could be talking about is the Civil Rights she grew in. The quote “huts of history’s shame” could be the discrimination the African American culture regularly faced during the 60s and 70s. With the comparison “I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide, / Welling and swelling I bear in the tide” is a symbolic way of saying “I rise.” Maya will never accept defeat as an answer. This stanza is very aggressive. It’s like she’s unleashing all of her rages out. The diction in this stanza is extremely aggressive comparing to other stanzas. This proves how she wants her protests, anywhere, to have the right amount of aggression. Gail K. Dickinson, Ph.D., writes about Still I Rise, “[She] speaks to not only surviving, but succeeding, against all the odds, against all prejudice, against all hopes. Our pathetic whine of not being understood pales in comparison to the struggles of centuries she portrays, as it should” (Dickson 6). This quote, explained by Dr. Dickinson, show Maya inspires people who are revolting through an emotional or physically situation. It does not have to be an adult; it can be a child who’s struggling. During the Civil Rights, many children protested with MLK as they fight the white ruling. That’s another beauty of Angelou’s work: any age can relate to it. Its language is simple, and the ordinary person could read it and understand the message she’s translating to the reader. 

Ultimately, it’s important to comprehend the history of individuals. Use them as a moderator to decide the future of yourself. These people have worked endlessly to provide the future for the generations to come. Maya deserves to be more famous. She helped shape our present society, and she needs more praise. Anyone who helps shape any future society for the better needs the recognition that they earn. It’s important, especially for the younger generations, to understand history, through literature or textbook, because it’s the younger generations who will shape the future. In today’s society, there’s a mimic of the Civil Rights Movement: The Black Lives Matter. Since this poem can reach out to this movement, it proves how racism is still alive today. But, Maya would want the protesters to fight and not let the prejudice win. This poem cries for fighting for people’s human rights.
