The
Composer
When I get to be a
composer,
I am going to write about
The daybreak in Alabama.
When I get to be a composer,
I am going to put some of the prettiest
Music in my music,
Coming up out of the earth like a moist,
Coming down from heaven like a dew.
When I get to be a composer,
I am going to put some field daisy
Eyes in my music,
Some copper-colored hands in my music.
When I get to be a composer,
I am going to put some long red necks in my music.
When I get to be a composer,
I am going to put some black and brown and beige
And red and yellow and pink
And white hands in my music,
Touching each other
Like dew.
—Dr. Maya Angelou © 2006
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A Pledge to Rescue Our Youth
Young women, young men of
color, we add our voices to the voices of your ancestors who speak to
you over ancient seas and across impossible mountain tops.
Come up from the gloom of national neglect,
you have already been paid for.
Come out of the shadow of irrational prejudice,
you owe no racial debt to history. The blood of our bodies and the prayers of our souls
have bought you a future free from shame and
bright beyond the telling of it.
We pledge ourselves and our resources to seek for you clean and
well-furnished schools, safe and non-threatening streets, employment
which makes use of your talents, but does not degrade your dignity.
You are the best we have.
You are all we have.
You are what we have become. We pledge you our whole hearts from this day forward.
—Dr. Maya Angelou © 2006
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jbrc@jbrc.org
