I decided last night to re-read Maya Angelou's book, "A Song Flung Up To Heaven" again. I came across it and it drew me. I finished it and enjoyed every page again. I really admire her body of work; her love affair with life and with words. After my last post, I just wanted to share this. Actually it's a quote from James Baldwin that Maya quotes ... Be Blessed. Here it is - speaking of Black People on the day Martin Luther King Jnr. was killed;
" We survived slavery: Think about that. Not because we were strong. The American Indians were strong, and they were on their own land. But they have not survived genocide. You know how we survived?"
"We put surviving into our poems and into our songs. We put it into our folk tales. We danced surviving in Congo Square in New Orleans and put it into our pots when we cooked pinto beans. We wore surviving on our backs when we clothed ourselves in the colors of the rainbow. We were pulled down so low we could hardly lift our eyes, so we knew, if we wanted to survive, we had better lift our own spirits. So we laughed whenever we got the chance."
This is beautiful and this is truth ... and what is more my friends, I know that God laughs with us too!
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