History Despite Its Wrenching Pain Cannot Be Unlived
Workers Action Press
Offset, 1993
Baltimore, MD
10114
Maya Angelou (1928-2014), was an American literary icon, poet, and civil rights activist. AS yesterday, April 4th, was her birthday, we are sharing a poster highlighting an excerpt from her poem "On the Pulse of Morning," written for Bill Clinton's 1993 Presidential inauguration.
At a time where the new of war, greed, and pain are inescapable, Angelou's poem conveys our country's history of slavery, colonization, genocide, and enviornmental destruction. The truth "cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage, need not be lived again." It is only through recognizing the horrors of our past that we can begin to heal the open wounds that re continually re-opened by greed. We can only achieve the "distant destiny" of peace by owning and understanding the responsibility we hold to one another.
Among her many accomplishments, Maya Angelou was a prolific author, writing scores of autobiographies, poems, essays, plays, and films. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, perhaps her most famous work, is one of Americas='s top 10 most-banned books of all time.
Sources: