Literary Hero Public Piece

This Literary Hero Public Piece is about Maya Angelou and how she’s connected with the Civil Rights Movement and how she’s impacted the movement itself. The Civil Rights Movement was mainly about the national effort made by colored people and their supporters in the 1950’s and 1960’s to eliminate segregation and gain equal rights. The Civil Rights Movement encompasses the social movements in the United States whose goal was to end racial segregation against blacks, and to enforce the right of voting to them. The Civil Rights Movement was mainly about trying to get the right to vote accepted for blacks.

Also it was about trying to banish the idea of racial segregation, and end racial segregation once and for all. Maya Angelou was a big impact on this movement because she herself was born into a time where racial equality didn’t exist and many people didn’t believe in it as well. Maya believed that everyone should be treated the same, no matter their race. But, the down side to this was people didn’t listen t her, since she is a female, in a male dominated time period. Nobody gave her a chance. The Civil Rights Movement influenced Mayas purpose of writing because, in her poems she has a main point to them.

I could tell in her poem “Still I Rise” that she wants to break through the norm in her time. Like before I mentioned that she was born in a time where males were dominant, and if you were female, nobody listened to you. “You may write me down in history With your bitter, twisted lies, You may tread me in the very dirt But still, like dust, I’ll rise” (Maya Angelou). In this stanza Maya, in my opinion is referring to how people have treated her like dirt, and also how she has rose against them to prove them wrong. “You may shoot me with your words, You may cut me with your eyes, You may kill me with your hatefulness, But still, like air, I’ll rise” (Maya Angelou). In this stanza this to me is talking about how during the Civil Rights Movement many innocent lives were taken because many people were standing up for something that they had strong feelings towards and wanted change.

Maya restates this idea throughout this poem. This issue affects many people in our world today because still, people are being discriminated by their skin color. Although there’s been a giant decrease in this issue today, it is still happening. Maya Angelou’s writing impacts today’s world because in her poems ans other writings, she stresses to us that everyone deserves to be treated with the same amount of respect as everyone else in this world. Also Maya has and still is inspiring many writers in today’s world, and I think this trend will continue many years to come.