Quotes About Community

People were those who lived on my side of town. I didn't like them all, or, in fact, any of them very much, but they were people. These others, the strange pale creatures that lived in their alien unlife, weren't considered Folks.

13. "We survive in exact relationship to the dedication of our poets," (this page) Angelou says of Black people. Do you think that this is true of all cultures? 14. The book title is a reference to a poem by Paul Lawrence Dunbar. Why do you think that Angelou chose this title?

Human beings are like some plants. If we pause a few seconds in our journey, we begin setting down roots, tendrils that entangle other people as we ourselves are entangled.

Ivonne said, You know white people are strange. I don't even know if they know why they do things. Ivonne had grown up in a small Mississippi town, and I, in a smaller town in Arkansas. Whites were as constant in our history as the seasons and as unfamiliar as affluence.

Al final, todas las preguntas infantiles sin respuesta deben transmitirse al pueblo y en él responderse. En ese primer ambiente nos encontramos por primera vez con los héroes y los fantasmas, los valores y las antipatías, y los calificamos.

Lighting: a hundred Watts Detroit, Newark and New York Screeching nerves, exploding minds lives tied to a policeman's whistle a welfare worker's doorbell finger

The unquestioning acceptance by my peers had dislodged the familiar insecurity.

I was young, yes, unmarried, yes - but I was a mother, and that placed me nearer to the people.

Who would answer all the questions, fulfill all the requests? Would anyone? Could anyone? History had taught the citizens of Watts to hope for the best and expect nothing, but be prepared for the worst.

Whatever was given by Black peple to other Blacks was most probably needed as desperately by the donor as by the receiver. A fact which made the giving or receiving a rich exchange.

The idea came to me that my people may be a race of masochists and that not only was it our fate to live the poorest, roughest life but that we liked it like that.

Watch for me and you will see That I'm present in the songs that children sing." People

Alone, all alone Nobody, but nobody Can make it out here alone.

Although there is nothing amusing about racial discrimination, the oppressed find funny things to say about it. The white folks are so prejudiced in my town, a colored person is not allowed to eat vanilla ice cream.

I come as one but I stand as ten thousand.

It is important that we learn humility, which says there was someone else before me who paid for me. My responsibility is to prepare myself so that I can pay for someone else who is yet to come."- Maya Angelou

Momma, always self-conscious at public displays of emotions not traceable to a religious source, told me to come with her and we'd bring the bread and bowls.

Oh, Black known and unknown poets, how often have your auctioned pains sustained us? Who will compute the lonely nights made less lonely by your songs, or by the empty pots made less tragic by your tales?

If it is true that a chain is only as strong as its weakest link, isn't it also true a society is only as healthy as its sickest citizen and only as wealthy as its most deprived? I believe so.

Great art belongs to all people, all the time—indeed it is made for the people by the people.

Every person needs a place that is furnished with hope.

I was no longer simply a member of the proud graduating class of 1940; I was a proud member of the wonderful, beautiful Negro race.

Aunque en el barrio negro siempre había muestras de generosidad, practicarla entrañaba el dolor del sacrificio. Fuera lo que fuese lo que un negro diera a otro, casi seguro que el donante lo necesitaba tan urgentemente como el donatario. Eso hacía que el dar y recibir constituyera entre ellos un intercambio fructífero.

I don't like being alone.