On the Pulse of Morning, by Maya Angelou Essay

Angelou did many important things during her lifetime. One that marked her life was working for Martin Luther King and Malcolm X as a civil rights activist. She became a spokesperson for African Americans and women around the country. Another thing that led Angelou to fame was President’s Bill Clinton invitation to participate in his inaugural. She wrote and recited the first inaugural poem for his presidency. She read On the Pulse of Morning, and Americans across the country were able to witness this special moment in time. This poem expressed the need for peace, social justice, equality as well as racial and religious harmony for all people despite their race, gender, origin or sexual orientations. Her poem was

n American history, racial inequality has been a prevalent issue for many decades. Slavery is America's original sin. In the 1930s, racial inequality and segregation lived and breathed well. At this point in time, segregation in schools and other public places was still present. For preposterous reasons, white and black people had separate water fountains, restaurants, rest rooms, and areas on the bus. During this time full of racism and racial inequality, Maya Angelou was just a little girl growing up in St. Louis, Missouri. St. Louis is a town in the South, like many others, had inequalities at the time. In 1938 Maya Angelou was only ten years old. At this age, she worked for a lady named Mrs. Viola Cullinan. Maya Angelou wrote briefly about her time spent working for Mrs. Cullinan in her short story “Mary.” Maya Angelou's’ use of vivid, direct characterization and alternating childish voice to mature adult narrative diction filtered through her authentic first person point of view helps to prominently establish the theme of Angelou’s distaste for racial inequality throughout the short story.

Maya Angelou’s poetry occupies a very special position in her development as a writer (Chow 1). As a child, Angelou went through five years of complete silence after she was raped at the age of seven years old, by a man named, Mr. Freeman. As a result of telling about her traumatic experience, her uncle’s literally kicked the man that raped her to death. Beings she spoke of her traumatic experience and the result of the man dying, she then imagined that her voice had the potential to kill. Thanks to her teacher, Bertha Flowers, at school Angelou started writing poetry as a means of expression of her life events through her poetry (Chow 1). Poetry thus played an essential part in the recovery of her voice, which in

Maya Angelou used her celebrity platform to raise awareness on equal rights for everyone. She proved this by being a civil rights activist. She fought for the end of racism, sexism, and even same sex marriage. In 1988, Maya Angelou spoke about the importance of coming out at the second annual Human Rights Campaign. In her speech Angelou said, "When we have enough courage to come out – I don’t mean just out of the closet, I mean out of your spirit – when you have enough courage to stand and say, ‘I came here to say,’ it’s amazing. You have no idea who you will inform.” She also personally called New York State Senator Shirley Huntley to voice her support of same-sex marriage. During the call she said, “To love someone takes a lot of courage, so how much more is one challenged when the love is of the same sex and the laws say, ‘I forbid you from loving this person’?” Shirley Huntley greatly opposed same sex marriage but after the conversation with Angelou she changed her stance and ended

Are encouraging words the uniting force when fighting injustice? In “Graduation Day,” Maya Angelou addresses how encouraging words affected the injustice she faced as a child. Angelou informs her audience about the influence encouraging words had on her and the people in her community. These uplifting words united her community in a time of overwhelming bias. Encouraging words unite oppressed people to fight injustice.

Maya Angelou was born April 4, 1928. Her real name is Marguerite Johnson, but she later changed it to Maya. She was born in St. Louis, shortly after her birth her family up and move to Arkansaw. Maya grew up there in the rural parts of Arkansaw, and later married to a South African Freedom Fighter. She lived in Cairo with him, there she began her career as editor of the Arab Observer.

Maya Angelou is terrific performer, singer, filmmaker, and civil-rights activist. She is a phenomenal woman, one thing that she does best is writing. She is still living today, I believe her legend will never die. If one would talk to her, he or she would think she has lead a normal, happy life. Her life is blissful now, it was not always perfect. Maya beard enough emotional stress in a time frame that most people do not experience in a lifetime. Her experiences and the lessons learned encouraged her to help others become strong. Maya Angelou is one of the best examples of someone overcoming rape, being mute for several years, and having a child at a young age to achieve success of becoming an accomplished

Maya Angelou acclaimed poet and author wrote a poem entitled “America”. The poem offers words of truth of our country America. The poem begins, “ The gold of her promise, has never been mined.” America, promises us that all men are created equal. The first problem with the promise is we are not all men. The gold of her promise, address equality. Although it is promised to all in this country, its never delivered, when discrimination, of race and gender are still existent. “Her borders of justice, not clearly defined.” We all have our opinions on what justice is, because circumstances differ when we speak of justice in the terms of punishment, to make up for ones wrong doing. Yet, the borders of justice are not

Maya Angelou is a very well educated and well known black woman. She studied at California Labor School and was appointed Reynolds Professor of American Studies at Wake Forest University (Maya Angelou: Poet and Historian, n.d.). In giving her speech at Spelman College, a predominantly black school, she was very well qualified for the occasion. It is no secret that Angelou participated in the Civil Rights Movement, she was a teacher, a successful writer, and a national figure. According to Thill and Bovee (2015), “Successful communication relies on a positive relationship between sender and receiver”

Maya Angelou, an African-American woman, wrote the poem, “Still I Rise,” in 1978 when racism was still prominent. Maya Angelou was reaching out to a racist community to prove oppression will not bring her down. Angelou brings up topics of what she and every other African-American person has to endure when living in their communities, and how they feel. She also brings up topics of oppression and marginalization throughout this speech to state that she will continue to rise up above it. Maya Angelou utilizes rhetorical questions, hateful diction, as well as, similes and metaphors to prove to others that she, and other African-American’s will rise against the racism and oppression they face.

Rhetoric gives you an avenue to tell a story from your perspective in a way that connects with the intended audience without having to be one hundred percent substantiated. This writing style is evident in almost everything we read from billboards to Internet ads and even political speeches.

¨I knew i lived in a country in which the aspiration of blacks were limited, marked of.¨

In “On the Pulse of Morning”, Angelou uses visual imagery and symbolism to argue that people must learn from the past to eliminate racial injustice in society today. The vivid descriptions found in the poem evoke feelings of injustice through the emotionally painful pictures that they paint. Americans as a whole are described in the poem to have “crouched too long in / The bruising darkness, [...] / Face down in ignorance” (“On the Pulse of Morning” 15-18). The speaker of the poem insinuates that “humans have been hiding, [...] afraid of what they might learn” from history (“On the Pulse of Morning”, 1998, 3: 276). The bestial visual of a person “crouching” takes away the humanity of the subjects, and the description of “bruising darkness” calls to mind the dark times of slavery over a hundred years prior. The image evokes a feeling that Americans have made terrible mistakes in the past that have not yet been corrected. They have committed terrible, animalistic acts in the blackened cover of history. These people refuse to look up and accept what has been done. The shadows of slavery and the pain caused by it are still ubiquitous in modern society, and if humans do not stop hiding from the truth, they cannot right the wrongs that have been committed. In order for the ignorance to end, people must accept the continuing prevalence of injustice. Not only does Angelou use detailed descriptions, but her use of symbolism allows the reader to see the injustice in society through

Rising Up in Still I Rise by Maya Angelou ? Still I Rise? by Maya Angelou is directed towards blacks on how to be proud of their ancestry, themselves, and their overall appearance. The poem is a special and motivating poem that African-Americans (and other races for that matter) should read and take to heart. According to African-Americans, Maya Angelou states that no matter what white Americans (slave owners) say or do to African-Americans (slaves) they can still rise up to make a better life for themselves and their race as a whole.

Almost a million people who were deprived of any sort of human rights had stood up against the government to make a change. The voices of the people come from the poem “A Million Man March” by Maya Angelou which proves that together people can make a big difference even when they go against the government. Before this big change had happened though the dark skinned part of the nation were treated horribly and were pushed over the edge, this was explained using imagery. Also a stanza was repeated very often to remind people of the horrors they had to go through and that is’s time for change using the power of metaphors. Finally during the march there was a fair amount of repetition which was used to make the people stronger and more