Transcription
[Applause] Oh, Lord, I want two wings to guide my feet. Oh, Lord, I want two wings to guide my hands. Oh, Lord, I want two wings to hold my eyes, so the world won't do me no harm. I know what the caged bird feels.
On me, when the sun is bright on the upland slopes, when the wind blows soft through the springing grass, and the river floats like a sheet of glass; when the first bird sings and the first bud opes, and the faint perfume from its chalice steals, I know what the caged bird feels. Oh, Lord, I want two wings to guide my mind. Oh, Lord, I want two wings to hold my back. Oh, Lord, I want two wings to watch me watch. Oh, Lord, I want so the world won't do me no harm. I know why the caged bird sings.
I mean, when its wings are bruised and its bosom sore, it beats its bars and would be free. It's not a carol of joy or glee, but a prayer that it sends from its heart's deep core; but a plea that upward to heaven it flames. I know why the caged bird sings. The caged bird jumps on the back of the wind; a free bird jumps on the back of the wind and floats downstream till the currents end, and dips its wings in the bright sun rays and dares to claim the sky. But a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams, often shouting a nightmare scream; its wings are clipped, its feet are tied, so it opens its mouth to sing. The caged bird sings with a fearful tra of things unknown but longed for still, and its song is heard on a distant hill. For the caged bird sings of freedom. A free bird thinks of another breeze and the trade winds soft through the sighing trees, and fat worms waiting on a dawn-bright lawn, and it names the sky its own. But a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams, shadows shouting a nightmare scream; its wings are clipped, its feet are tied, so it opens its mouth to sing. The caged bird sings with a fearful tra of things unknown but longed for still, and its voice is heard on the distant hill, throughout the lion, throughout the air, across the oceans, across centuries, across centuries, across in fact continent, and across ignorance, because hate, because the caged bird sings of freedom. Oh, Lord, I want two wings to guide my feet. Oh, Lord, I want two wings to guide my mind. Oh, Lord, I want two wings to hold my arms, so the world won't do me no thank you. M. Oh, lord, well, well, well, well, it is such you please my heart when you invited me again. I had such a good time down in Texas.
[Music] Whoa. I have thought of you ever since. I had a wonderful time in Texas, and when there was a chance that I could come to uh, Washington, D.C., where I really wanted to be. I wanted to be here. I wanted to bring all my stuff here. Yes, yes. Mhm. I surely did, and I wanted to get down on my knees here and pray here, because I know there are too many people who get down on their knees here just to look in somebody else's keyhole. Hello. Yes. Mhm. Well, so I want it to come. Mhm. Yes, and I wanted to see, say to my brothers and sisters, my nephews and nieces, my daughters and sons, my beloveds who are here, that fortunately we are not alone.
Now, let me just tell you this one little story. I'm not even starting yet, so wait. Some years ago, uh, I was invited to speak and uh, in um, Utah, at Brigham Young University. And I was so nervous that when I, I really, I, I asked my sister, Dary Mc. I said, "Sister," she was teaching at Hunter in New York. I said, "Sister, meet me please." She met me in in uh, Salle. Um, I called my mom. I said, "I don't know what these people, they are paying me all this money, they hate me. Why, why do they want me to speak?" Now, my brothers and sisters and children and Ken, listen to this. My mother said, "Baby, you are there for some reason. Don't worry about it. Just do what you think is right. You are there for some reason." That two men came to pick me and my sister up at the hotel and drove us from Salt Lake to Provo, and they showed me the uh, the brochure for the year. There were 12 speakers; the other 11 were white, middle-aged men; no other woman and no black, saved me. So the person who had spoken the month before was Spiro T. Agnew.
[Applause] The people explained to me that there would be 11,000 folks in the stadium to hear me. I was so concerned. My heart thumped when we arrived at the stadium. The, the tears were raked so steep, so steeply that it seemed all those white folks were going to fall on top. It was amazing. There was only my sister, and way up at the top was another black face. There were 40 men in dark suits sitting on the on the platform. Someone gave a a sort of quiet and and little invocation, and someone else got up and said, "And here's Maya Angelou." They didn't say I had tried and failed, or I had succeeded, or no, nothing. "Here's Maya Angelou." So I got up with the with my speech and started to the podium, and then I remembered a statement I had heard that I want you all to remember. I remembered that statement. I put the the speech back on the on the chair, and I went up to the podium. I said, "I thank you so much for inviting me. I am told that you are some 11,000 here, and I also know you have some religious uh, inclination. However, as I am told and I believe, one person with God constitutes the majority." Hello. Oh, my Lord, my Lord. And so I commend you for coming here in your minority to face me this morning. Well, I talked for about an hour and a half. I asked pointedly, "How dare you try to deny me God? You can't articulate my little finger. You can't choose to put one one hair in my in a hair follicle, and you dare to try to deny me God? You have decided I will be a hue of wood and a draw of water world without end. Amen. Says who? You? You come on, get off it. You may have lots of power. You may have names which make people tremble in the marketplace. You may have large fortunes, but I have yet to see one hearse with a hitch." Hello. So what? So what now? When I spoke, I I had such a good time. I talked for about two hours. I had said, "Lord, if you wanted said, put it in my mouth, I'll be glad to say it." Thank you. So I finished. The two uh, men took me and my sister back to Salt Lake. I called my mom in San Francisco. I said, "Ma, it was all right." She said, "I know it was all right." I stayed up all night praying. About two hours later, the telephone rang, and a man phoned. He said, "Miss Angelou, I am the Elder in the Mormon church. I was there this morning." So I said, "Ah." He said, "We want to ask you to speak tonight in the temple."
[Applause] I said, "Uh, I will have to say the same thing." He said, "That's what we want." I'm telling you this story for a particular reason, so that I said, "Can I," asked him, "Can you get people?" He said, "That's not your lookout." That night, two more fellas came and walked me and my sister around the corner, and there were 5,000 people, and I said, "Thank you for coming in your minority. One person, as I understand it, with God constitutes the majority. I commend you for your courage to come here." When I finished, they were very kind. The one black fell way up there was there that evening, and so we shook hands. My sister and I got on the plane the next day. She came out to California with me, and I said, "Sister, it's not me. The uh, the church is ready to make a change, and someone has told them, 'Get Maya Angelou. She will lay a foundation for your change.'" Had nothing to do with me, but somebody had been following me around listening. That next week, the Elder died. But in six months, the new Elder came in, and he said, "God talked to him directly and told him that black people had worked out their salvation and that they now go directly to Heaven." You know that now there are black ministers in the Mormon Church. You know that.
[Applause] Sometimes I tell you this story because it is important that each of us be aware of the power we have in our very being to come to be a federal supporter of HRC, to actually come out to to work, to become present in in our varying communities. You have no idea who's watching you. You have no idea who you will impress and inform and change and enhearten and empower. You have no idea. No idea who will take just something you said from your heart—you said it, or the way you walk, or the way you dress. There's some 14-year-old who says, "I like the way, really, I like that. You know, he always carries that little case. I like that. I like the way she, you know, she's gotten, she wears and nothing, and she's always smiling. I like that." You have no idea who you will inform, because all of us are caged birds; have been and will be again caged by somebody else's ignorance, caged because of someone else's small-mindedness, caged because of someone else's fear, caged, and sometimes caged by our own lack of courage. And so when we have enough courage to come out—I don't mean just out of a closet, I mean out of your spirit—out, when you have enough courage, stand and say, "I came here to stay." Yes, sir. Yes, sir. It's amazing. You have no idea who you will inform.
So anyway, I thought I would exp- tell that story just to prepare you for the next three or four hours. I hope you you br- no, and not really, no, but I did. After hearing I our vice president and Mrs. Go and your president, I tell you I was so enheartened that um, in these times, I was made to feel more secure, and this is a time of such insecurity. Meant a great deal to me. At the same time, I had made my mind up that I was going to going to speak on some, but then after hearing them, I thought, "I'm going to talk about romance." A people, a person, our community without romance risks being brutish and crass and superficial and brittle and cruel and even murderous without romance. And I don't mean just romantic romance. I don't mean just uh, erotic romance. I mean Agape romance. I mean uh, uh, brotherly sisterly romance. I mean the romance that allows us to soften our voices when we see each other. "Hey, honey, how you doing? Man, come here, hug my neck." I mean that. In a world where people are afraid that the watching police are photographing us shaking hands and hi, I mean having enough romance to say, "Come, let's embrace. I will not deny my Humanity with you. I don't care who's watching." That's romantic. That's it. So I I also wanted to discuss um, and do some poems on of humor, because I never trust people who say they love me if they don't love themselves, or people who say, "I'm serious," and act as if they put airplane glue on the back of their hands and stuck them to their for—not really. They didn't come to St. So I like to hear people laugh. I love it. I love to laugh. I pray every day that I will laugh at least as much as I cry, because and people who say, "I love you," and don't, people who say, "I'm I'm serious," and are not, they remind me of the African saying, which is, "Be careful when a naked person offers you a shirt." The the remance, remance. I note the obvious differences in the Human family. Some of us are serious; some thrive on comedy; some declare their lives are lived as true profundity, and others claim, "No, they are living the real reality." The variety of our skin tones can confuse, beuse, delight. We are brown and pink and beige and purple and tan and blue and white. I've sailed upon the seven seas and stopped in every land and seen the wonders of the world, but not yet one common man. I know 10,000 women called Jane or Mary Jane, but I've never seen any two who really were the same. Mirror twins are different, although their features dve, and lovers think quite different thoughts while lying s side by side. We love and lose in China; we weep on England's Moors and laugh and moan in Guinea and thrive on Spanish Shores. We seek success in Finland; we are born and die in Maine. In minor ways we differ; in major we're the same. I note the obvious differences in every sort and type, but we are more alike, my friends, than we are unalike. We are more alike, my friends, than we are unalike.
[Applause] Well, the uh, the Romantic poetry, especially, I would encourage you to think of these things. I know that um, I'm supposed to come here and entertain you and be brief and succinct, and I will, really, but but but there are some things I want, I pray that you will hear and that will be of use to you in time to come. One, of course, is that one person with the right idea constitutes a majority. That's one I think so, and so you don't have to be do an apia just because you may be different or appear to be different. The other is that we are more alike than we are unalike. I want you to hear some some romantic poetry, um, African-American poetry, just a few little snippets, um, mainly because you know that the first Africans were brought to this country in 1619. Uh, this is not trying to be sedid or anything, but 1619 was one year before the Mayflower. Do we've undergone experiences too bizarre to have been included in Alex Haley's phenomenon, the book Roots, or in the television phenomenon Roots, in which I played Kunta Kinte's grandmother. Too bizarre, yet here we are, still here; still the last TI, still the first fired, still the butts of even some white liberals' jokes. They're still here today, upwards of 50 million, and I know that that's a conservative estimate because some people swear there are more than 50 million black people in the Baptist Church. They're not even counting backsliders and AME and CME and the three black atheists in the world. So what on earth, I mean, really, how how did the people survive? Well, I think a part of their survival can be credited to the romance in the Poetry. When a larger society, when the mighty are telling the weak or the few, "You don't count. You get, you don't even come," no, not just the way you look, the way you think, the way you talk, the way you walk. I no, no, I don't have to consider you. So when you have the Cur, the, the Poetry which tells you, "You are fabulous. You are wonderful. You're just right. You're the way God made you, honey. You're just f—I didn't make you. I don't have anything to say about it. That's the way God made. I'm so glad to know that. Bless your heart." Now, when you understand that, it means that you have no apology to make. You don't have to prove yourself right and right in your body and right in your space and right in your city to anyone. You just don't have to do that. Now, some years ago, I spoke in Minneapolis at University, and I had a wonderful time, and I was invited back three years later. I hint, but no, uh, I was invited by and um, I I enjoyed myself again, and then I went backstage, and there was a fance of of of security, and a woman came came backstage. She reminded me of myself, save that she's white. She was six foot. I'm six foot. She had an air, I claim an air. She was about my age, which is what the French call a certain age, you know. After, she came, she came right through. She said, "Hello." I put my hand up. She said, "I want to hug you." I said, "Fine." We embraced. She said, "Um, I want to thank you for from my daughter's life." HH. She started to cry. I started to cry. We embraced. We both, she said her daughter had attempted suicide any number of times, but that um, someone had brought her three years earlier to hear me speak, and I had spoken on the courage to live, and the young woman called her mother and said, "Forget that. I have tried suicide. I will never try it again. I believe my life may hold such promise. I will not." The mother cried. I cried. We loved it. When we broke our embrace, a young woman came looking very much like the mother, and the mother said, "U, Cynthia, what are you doing here?" The young woman who lives in Oakair, Wisconsin, said that she had read that I was speaking, and she drove over to hear me. So the girl hugged me. She cried. I cried. The mother cried. We had a wonderful time, and when when it was finished, the mother said, "I want you to have this letter my daughter wrote to me after having heard you speak." They left. I was on the road. I didn't return home for two weeks. When I returned home and read the letter, it broke my heart. It was full of so much ignorance, so much racism, so much that I I started to read the letter. Said in effect, "Mother, I went to hear Maya Angelou, and she was wonderful. I'll tell you about what she said, but let me tell you about what she looked like. Mother, she came on the stage, she was so big and so ugly and so black, Mother, she terrified me." I started to weep. Here this girl is, said, "I have been instrumental in saving her life." We have all lived together in varying degrees of intimacy over these 300-plus years, and this child could say, "I was ugly." I started, well, I just started just small tears and then big tears, and and then and then that and before I knew it, I was sobbing, and I thought, "Let me get hold to myself. Soon I will start thinking about suicide. I wouldn't go alone. I'd find her." Oh, yes. Oh, yes. We would jump together. Oh, yes, we would. But then I thought of this poem of Langston Hughes called "Harlem." Sweeties, now you all know that black people range in color from Plum Plum blue to milk white. Well, gay people are obvious and not and subtle and cool and and really out there, and you and you'd have to some you say, "Are you are you sure? Have you dug The Spill of Sugar Hill?" Cast your gems on this SE, your thrill, brown sugar lash, a caramel treat, a honey gold baby, sweet enough to eat. Peach skin fella, coffee and cream, chocolate darling out of a dream. Walnut tinted, cocoa brown, pomegranate pride in time. Rich cream colored, plum tinted, black feminine sweetness and man's handsomeness are not Harlem's lack. From the glow of the quint to the blush of the rose, bronze, cinnamon toes, chocolate cinnamon, let me repeat, caramel brown sugar, a chocolate treat, ginger wine, gold premon, black berry, licorice, clove, cinnamon, all through the spectrum, Harlem folks vary. So if you want to know Beauty's rainbow sweet thrill, stroll with me down luscious hey delicious, whoa, fine Sugar Hill. Well, well, well. I would encourage you all to find a poem, memorize it. Find if it's just two verses, memorize it. Stock it in this fabulous computer, stock it so that when you walk into an office and and they are the Snickers, you can just stand there and think, "Have you dug The Spill of sugar here?" Something, not necessarily, I mean, think of ocent Vincent Millay. Okay, look at this little woman, little white woman, uh, very popular as a poet, about to become the ReUse. She did become Juan, nice word, Juan. In North Carolina, we call it puny, puny. About to become this recluse, she wrote, and now this is one to memorize: "I shall die, but that is all I will do for death. Oh, I hear his horses' hooves on the stalls. He has business this morning, business in Cuba, business in the Balkans, but he must mount by himself. I will not give him a leg up. I'm not in his employ. I will die, but that is all I will do for death. With his horses' hooves on my chest, I will not tell him where the black boy lies hidden in the swamp." Brothers and Sisters, the keys and the plans to the city are safe with me. Through me you will never be overthrown, for I shall die, but that is all I will do for death. Now, so I might well, my encouragement to you is to find something and put it. Remember, one person with...
God, don't you doce him, and yourn okay, that and then uh, we are more alike than we are unalike, and find something that will serve you and amazingly save you for uh, these moments when you come together, when we come together once a year, are so valuable, they're not frequent enough. Each one of us is out here alone, sad. L alone too many times, whether gay or straight, fat or thin, pretty or plain, rich or poor, vowed or celibate. Each one of us spends almost too much time in aloneness and loneliness. I don't mean the beautiful Solitude where you can really think great thoughts, or nothing, which is even better, but I mean those times so when we have these times of such insecurity and question and doubt, and we can say, if we are religious, "I believe. Lord, forgive my disbelief," when we are in those moments of utter doubt, we can find something which pulls us, we can pull up, which will in turn pull us up.
Um, Mr. Hamilton read a few lines from this poem, and uh, I'm going to read this; it's very brief. Um, I was asked to write this poem after writing the uh, inaugural poem. I was asked by the United Nations to write a poem for the world. Uh, I give you this poem, HRC, if you want, if your Administration would like to have the right to make it into posters to sell it, I give it to you. We well, okay, thanks. We, we this people on a small and lonely planet, traveling through casual space, past aloof Stars across the way of indifferent Suns, to a destination where all signs tell us it is possible and imperative that we learn a brave and startling truth.
And when we come to it, to the day of peacemaking, when we release our fingers from fists of hostilities, when we come to it, when the curtain falls on the minstrel show of hate, and faces sooted with scorn are scrubbed clean, when battlefields in Coliseum no longer rake our unique and particular Sons and Daughters up with the bruised and bloody grass to lie in identical plots of foreign soil, when we come to it, when the repati storming of the churches, the screaming racket in the temples have ceased, when the pennants are waving gay, when the banners of the world tremble stoutly in a good Clean Breeze, when we come to it, when we let the rifles fall from our shoulders and our children can dress their dolls in truce, in flags of truce, when landmines of death have been removed and our aged can walk into evenings of Peace, when religious ritual is not perfumed by the incense of burning flesh and childhood dreams are not kicked awake by nightmares of abuse, when we come to it, then we will confess that not the pyramids with their Stones set in mysterious Perfection, nor The Gardens of Babylon hanging as Eternal Beauty in our Collective memory, not the Grand Canyon kindled into delicious color by Western sunsets, not the Danube flowing its Blue Soul into Europe, not the sacred peak of Mount Fuji stretching to the Rising Sun, neither Father Amazon nor Mother Mississippi, who without favor nurture all creatures in the depth and on their Shores—these are not the only wonders of the world.
When we come to it, we, this people on this minuscule and kless Globe, who reach daily for the bomb, the blade, and the dagger, yet who petition in the dusk for tokens of Peace, we, this people on this moat of matter, in whose mouths abide canorous Words which challenge our very existence—get out of the—those same mouths can come songs of such Exquisite sweetness that the heart falters in its labor and the body is quieted into awe. We, this people on this small and drifting Planet, whose hands can strike with such abandon that in a twinkling life is sapped from the living, yet those same hands can touch with such healing, irresistible tenderness that the haughty neck is happy to bow and the proud back is glad to bend. Out of such chaos, of such confusion, we learn we are neither Devils nor divines.
When we come to it, we, this people on this Wayward floating body, created on this Earth, of this Earth, have the power to fashion for this Earth a climate where every man and every woman can live free, without sanctimonious piety, without crippling fear. When we come to it, we must confess that we are the possible, we are the miraculous, we are the true Wonder of this world. That is when, and only when, we come to it. Thank you.