Click the icon above to listen to this audio poem.

You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I’ll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
’Cause I walk like I’ve got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.
Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I’ll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops,
Weakened by my soulful cries?

Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don’t you take it awful hard
’Cause I laugh like I’ve got gold mines
Diggin’ in my own backyard.

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.

Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I’ve got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history’s shame
I rise
Up from a past that’s rooted in pain
I rise
I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.

Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.

Lying, thinking
Last night
How to find my soul a home
Where water is not thirsty
And bread loaf is not stone
I came up with one thing
And I don’t believe I’m wrong
That nobody,
But nobody
Can make it out here alone.

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

There are some millionaires
With money they can’t use
Their wives run round like banshees
Their children sing the blues
They’ve got expensive doctors
To cure their hearts of stone.
But nobody
No, nobody
Can make it out here alone.

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

Now if you listen closely
I’ll tell you what I know
Storm clouds are gathering
The wind is gonna blow
The race of man is suffering
And I can hear the moan,
’Cause nobody,
But nobody
Can make it out here alone.

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

I’m sick and tired of being sick and tired 

           She meant

                      No more turned cheek

                      No more patience for the obstruction

                      of black woman’s right to vote

                      & plant & feed her family

           She meant

                      Equality will cost you your luxurious life

                      If a Black woman can’t vote

                      If a brown baby can’t be fed

                      If we all don’t have the same opportunity America promised

           She meant

                      Ain’t no mountain boulder enough

                      to wan off a determined woman

           She meant

                      Here

           Look at my hands

                      Each palm holds a history

                      of the 16 shots that chased me

                      harm free from a plantation shack

           Look at my eyes

                      Both these are windows

                      these little lights of mine

           She meant

                      Nothing but death can stop me

                      from marching out a jail cell still a free woman

           She meant

                      Nothing but death can stop me from running for Congress

           She meant

                      No black jack beating will stop my feet from working

                      & my heart from swelling

                      & my mouth from praying

           She meant

                      America! you will learn freedom feels like

                      butter beans, potatoes & cotton seeds

                      picked by my sturdy hands

           She meant

           Look

           Victoria Gray, Anna Divine & Me

           In our rightful seats on the house floor

           She meant  

                      Until my children

                      & my children’s children

                      & they babies too

                      can March & vote

                      & get back in interest

                      what was planted

                      in this blessed land



           She meant

                      I ain’t stopping America

                      I ain’t stopping America

Not even death can take away from my woman’s hands

what I’ve rightfully earned