39 pages • 1 hour read
Still I Rise
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Background
Biographical and Historical Context
The poem’s criticism of anti-Black racism aligns with Angelou’s life experiences and her life-long activism. As a child, Angelou experienced race-related trauma because of her gender, race, and class. For a time during her childhood, the poet was mute, in response to a trauma she experienced, and the support and encouragement of her teacher, Mrs. Bertha Flowers, transformed her life. Thanks to Mrs. Flowers, Angelou began to speak again and to love poetry. Mrs. Flowers placed Black female writers like Frances Harper, Anne Spencer, and Jessie Fause amongst white male writers like Charles Dickens and William Shakespeare, elevating the stature of the Black poets and valuing of Black art as equal to that of white mainstream writers and artists. This education informed Angelou’s career, and she carried on placing value on Black women’s experiences and feelings.
Throughout her life, Angelou also engaged in activism. Though Angelou’s politics were not as radical as other writers, Angelou supported different civil rights efforts throughout her life. For example, “Still I Rise” appeared in an advertising campaign for the United Negro College Fund.
Angelou met Martin Luther King, Jr. through her work for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. A speech by King in 1960 inspired Angelou to stage the revue “Cabaret for Freedom,” and in 1968, King asked her to organize a march. Angelou agreed, but she eventually had to postpone the event, and before the march could be held, King was assassinated, coincidentally on Angelou’s birthday. His death devastated Angelou, and she sent flowers to her friend and King’s widow, Coretta Scott King, on the anniversary of King’s murder until her death in 2006.
Angelou also worked with Malcolm X while she lived in Ghana with her son in the early 1960s. She worked with a delegation to find an African nation who would lodge a complaint with the United Nations against the United States for the acts of genocide committed in America when the practice of slavery was legal. The delegation was unsuccessful, but Angelou continued to work with Malcolm X to build the Pan-Africanist organization Organization of Afro-American Unity.
While working as a journalist in Egypt during the 1960s, Angelou also met Nelson Mandela. At his presidential inauguration in 1994, Mandela recited “Still I Rise.” Upon his death, Angelou wrote and recited the poem “His Day is Done” to commemorate his life and legacy.
Literary Context
Angelou’s work has a musical and oral quality that is representative of the spirituals of enslaved Black people. The subject of the poem and its lyrical expression of the speaker’s emotions are key characteristics of spirituals. In particular, “Still I Rise” is reminiscent of jubilees, or spirituals that are future-orientated; the lyrics of these songs predict happiness and deliverance from oppression. As well, the poem contains echoes of freedom songs, which had a resurgence during the Civil Rights Movement. Angelou’s poetry often benefited from being performed, thanks to the poem’s musical meter and rhyme scheme.
Angelou’s work also expands upon the tradition of the slave narrative as a form of Black memoir. Angelou herself often cited Frederick Douglass’s autobiography as inspiration. In his work, he also often uses the first-person singular in his work to indicate his choice to represent a collective. Like slave narratives where the enslaved Black person seeks physical freedom, Angelou’s work, including “Still I Rise,” signifies another kind of journey towards freedom in an oppressive culture.
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