Make Your Damn Bed

Angela Davis is a lot of things. A scholar, an author, a philosopher, an activist, an advocate, an educator, and a badass. Let's talk about her.

RESOURCES: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angela_Davis

https://www.nytimes.com/1972/03/30/archives/miss-davis-tells-of-buying-guns-but-denies-plot-role-miss-davis.html

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/10/19/t-magazine/angela-davis.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soledad_Brothers

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Angela Davis is a lot of things. A scholar, an author, a philosopher, an activist, an advocate, an educator, and a badass. Let's talk about her.

RESOURCES: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angela_Davis

https://www.nytimes.com/1972/03/30/archives/miss-davis-tells-of-buying-guns-but-denies-plot-role-miss-davis.html

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The opinions expressed by Julie Merica and Make Your Damn Bed Podcast are intended for entertainment purposes only. Make Your Damn Bed podcast is not intended or implied to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment.

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Today I recite a whole bunch of incredible Maya Angelou quotes because I knew I had been quoting her for years but the extent to which I did NOT know how much(????) was absolutely revelatory.

Did you know she said: “Never make someone a priority when all you are to them is an option.” and “When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.” and “Living well is an art that can be developed: a love of life and ability to take great pleasure from small offerings and assurance that the world owes you nothing and that every gift is exactly that, a gift.”

https://www.goodgoodgood.co/articles/maya-angelou-quotes

https://www.stylist.co.uk/books/quotes/maya-angelou-best-quotes/199029

Interview: https://www.context.org/iclib/ic43/angelou/ 

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The opinions expressed by Julie Merica and Make Your Damn Bed Podcast are intended for entertainment purposes only. Make Your Damn Bed podcast is not intended or implied to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment.

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Yesterday, I shared Maya Angelou’s poem, On the Pulse of the Morning. And today, before we discuss it, I want to share an interview I found of her discussing writing it, this video includes Bill and Hillary Clinton’s opinions on the poetry as well. Originally, I wrote all these responses in my own words, but it just doesn’t feel right - further distilling history when we have video and audio, and you can hear it straight from the source, here: https://florida.pbslearningmedia.org/resource/ang17.ela.poetry.morning/maya-angelou-still-i-rise-maya-angelou-and-the-1993-inaugural-poem-on-the-pulse-of-morning/ 

Linda + Maya's interview: https://www.context.org/iclib/ic43/angelou/ 

Other resources used for today: https://www.losangelesblade.com/2018/04/06/remembering-maya-angelou-lgbts/

All of Maya Angelou's poetry, archived for free?!: https://antilogicalism.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/maya_angelou.pdf 

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The opinions expressed by Julie Merica and Make Your Damn Bed Podcast are intended for entertainment purposes only. Make Your Damn Bed podcast is not intended or implied to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment.

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Maya Angelou's poem "On the Pulse of the Morning" feels as relevant today as it did when she recited it on January 20, 1993. Tomorrow, we will dig into it. Here is the transcript: https://awpc.cattcenter.iastate.edu/2017/03/21/on-the-pulse-of-morning-jan-20-1993/

A Rock, A River, A Tree

Hosts to species long since departed,

Mark the mastodon.

The dinosaur, who left dry tokens

Of their sojourn here

On our planet floor,

Any broad alarm of their of their hastening doom

Is lost in the gloom of dust and ages.

But today, the Rock cries out to us, clearly, forcefully,

Come, you may stand upon my

Back and face your distant destiny,

But seek no haven in my shadow.

I will give you no hiding place down here.

You, created only a little lower than

The angels, have crouched too long in

The bruising darkness,

Have lain too long

Face down in ignorance.

Your mouths spelling words

Armed for slaughter.

...

I, the rock, I the river, I the tree

I am yours--your passages have been paid.

Lift up your faces, you have a piercing need

For this bright morning dawning for you.

History, despite its wrenching pain,

Cannot be unlived, and if faced with courage,

Need not be lived again.

Lift up your eyes upon

The day breaking for you.

Give birth again

To the dream.

Women, children, men,

Take it into the palms of your hands.

Mold it into the shape of your most

Private need. Sculpt it into

The image of your most public self.

Lift up your hearts.

Each new hour holds new chances

For new beginnings.

Do not be wedded forever

To fear, yoked eternally

To brutishness.

The horizon leans forward,

Offering you space to place new steps of change.

Here, on the pulse of this fine day

You may have the courage

To look up and out upon me,

The rock, the river, the tree, your country.

No less to Midas than the mendicant.

No less to you now than the mastodon then.

Here on the pulse of this new day

You may have the grace to look up and out

And into your sister's eyes,

Into your brother's face, your country

And say simply

Very simply

With hope

Good morning."

https://blogs.loc.gov/catbird/2021/02/on-the-pulse-of-morning-remembering-maya-angelou/

https://awpc.cattcenter.iastate.edu/2017/03/21/on-the-pulse-of-morning-jan-20-1993/

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The opinions expressed by Julie Merica and Make Your Damn Bed Podcast are intended for entertainment purposes only. Make Your Damn Bed podcast is not intended or implied to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment.

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Did you know James Baldwin is the friend who pushed Maya Angelou to write "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings"??? I sure didn't. This human was so impressive and intentional and inspirational + I can't wait to talk about her work with you!

MAYA + JAMES: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6sFgaZBs-U

MAYA + OPRAH: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/oprahs-super-soul/id1264843400?i=1000400403805

RESOURCES: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Know_Why_the_Caged_Bird_Sings https://www.salon.com/2014/05/28/how_maya_angelou_became_the_voice_of_america/

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The opinions expressed by Julie Merica and Make Your Damn Bed Podcast are intended for entertainment purposes only. Make Your Damn Bed podcast is not intended or implied to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment.

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In his 1955 essay, Notes of a Native Son,

“I love America more than any other country in the world, and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually.” —James Baldwin

FURTHER READING:

Original Article: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1962/11/17/letter-from-a-region-in-my-mind

debate transcript: https://www.rimaregas.com/2015/06/transcript-james-baldwin-debates-william-f-buckley-1965-blog42/

books: https://bookriot.com/james-baldwin-books/

resource: https://bookriot.com/who-was-james-baldwin/

video: James talks racism: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWwOi17WHpE

video: Maya + James https://www.openculture.com/2021/10/witness-maya-angelou-james-baldwins-close-friendship-in-a-tv-interview-from-1975.html

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The opinions expressed by Julie Merica and Make Your Damn Bed Podcast are intended for entertainment purposes only. Make Your Damn Bed podcast is not intended or implied to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment.

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The Baldwin/Buckley Debate was a televised debate of The Cambridge Union Society held on 18th February 1965, which has since come to be seen as one of the most historic and influential intellectual debates on race relations in America. James Baldwin, an influential African American writer and activist, and William F. Buckley, a leading conservative intellectual, debated the motion, “The American dream is at the expense of the American Negro.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1965_Baldwin/Buckley_Debate 

https://www.nicholasbuccola.com/the-fire-is-upon-us-1  

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1965_Baldwin/Buckley_Debate 

https://www.counterpunch.org/2016/07/04/reading-james-baldwin-on-the-4th-of-july/ 

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The opinions expressed by Julie Merica and Make Your Damn Bed Podcast are intended for entertainment purposes only. Make Your Damn Bed podcast is not intended or implied to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment.

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Today's words are brought to you by the badass James Baldwin at a speech that is wildly still relevant today.

"What is crucial here is that unless we can manage to accept, establish some kind of dialog between those people whom I pretend have paid for the American dream and those other people who have not achieved it, we will be in terrible trouble. I want to say, at the end, the last, is that is that is what concerns me most. We are sitting in this room, and we are all, at least I’d like to think we are, relatively civilized, and we can talk to each other at least on certain levels so that we could walk out of here assuming that the measure of our enlightenment, or at least, our politeness, has some effect on the world. It may not."

RESOURCES:

Readings: https://www.sas.upenn.edu/~cavitch/pdf-library/Baldwin_NewLost.pdf

Recordings: https://ia903003.us.archive.org/21/items/FreeAndBraveASpeechByJamesBaldwin1963/James%20Baldwin%20-%20Pin%20Drop%20Speech.mp3

Articles: https://www.harlemworldmagazine.com/harlems-james-baldwin-pin-drop-speech-cambridge-university-1965-video/

https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2019/12/james-baldwin-william-f-buckley-debate/602695/

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The opinions expressed by Julie Merica and Make Your Damn Bed Podcast are intended for entertainment purposes only. Make Your Damn Bed podcast is not intended or implied to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment.

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https://nmaahc.si.edu/explore/stories/introduction-james-baldwin 

The human responsible for this quote: “It is very nearly impossible to become an educated person in a country so distrustful of the independent mind.”

― James Baldwin

It is certain, in any case, that ignorance, allied with power, is the most ferocious enemy justice can have.

—James Baldwin

James Arthur Baldwin (1924 – 1987) was born in Harlem, New York on August 2, 1924 to Emma Berdis Jones, originally from Deal Island, Maryland. Love is at the heart of the Baldwin philosophy. Love for Baldwin cannot be safe; it involves the risk of commitment, the risk of removing the masks and taboos placed on us by society. The philosophy applies to individual relationships as well as to more general ones. It encompasses sexuality as well as politics, economics, and race relations. And it emphasizes the dire consequences, for individuals and racial groups, of the refusal to love.

— David Adams Leeming, James Baldwin: A Biography[192]

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The opinions expressed by Julie Merica and Make Your Damn Bed Podcast are intended for entertainment purposes only. Make Your Damn Bed podcast is not intended or implied to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment.

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