The Divine upon my right impels me to pull forever at the latch on Freedom’s gate. The Holy Spirit upon my left leads my feet without ceasing into the camp of the righteous and into the tents of the free.
Maya Angelou
I Shall Not Be Moved
Topic: Wisdom & Understanding
Into the crashing sound,
into wickedness, she cried,
No one, no, nor no one million
ones dare deny me God, I go forth
along, and stand as ten thousand.
The Divine upon my right
impels me to pull forever
at the latch on Freedom’s gate.
The Holy Spirit upon my left leads my
feet without ceasing into the camp of the
righteous and into the tents of the free…
Centered on the world’s stage,
she sings to her loves and beloveds,
to her foes and detractors:
However I am perceived and deceived,
however my ignorance and conceits,
lay aside your fears that I will be undone,
for I shall not be moved.
Maya Angelou (4 April, 1928 – 28 May, 2014), born Marguerite Annie Johnson, was an African-American poet, memoirist, actress, director, producer, writer, singer, dancer, and civil rights activist. Her compassion, courage, and deep spirituality influenced her vast body of work and public life. Born and raised in St. Louis, Missouri, and Stamps, Arkansas, Angelou confronted racial discrimination and personal trauma. These experiences served as the basis for her seminal work, "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings," reflecting her resilient spirit and setting the stage for her impactful roles in literature, cinema, and activism.
Angelou's kindness and empathy were defining traits, evident in her personal interactions and her writing. She held a strong belief in the transformative power of words, using her literary prowess to explore themes of love, kindness, and human fellowship, advocating the role of compassion in healing societal fractures. A spiritual person, Angelou drew on diverse traditions, encompassing African religions, Christianity, and Eastern philosophies. This broad spiritual perspective underpinned her sense of human interconnectedness and significantly influenced her creative output.
Her creativity, which spanned film directing, screenplay writing, autobiographical writing, poetry, essays, and music, addressed social, personal, and spiritual themes with a distinctive blend of honesty and empathy. Through life's hardships, Angelou retained a spirit of gratitude, a trait she imparted as a mentor to younger generations of artists and writers. Despite her passing in 2014, Angelou's legacy of courage, compassion, creativity, and spirituality continues to inspire, offering insight and comfort to countless individuals worldwide.
Angelou, Maya. I Shall Not Be Moved. Random House, 1990, pp. 26–28. (This is an excerpt from “Our Grandmothers”.)
Maya Angelou
Theme: Wisdom
About This Maya Angelou Poem [Excerpt Commentary]
In “Our Grandmothers,” Maya Angelou gives voice to a strength that comes from divine accompaniment. She writes, “The Divine upon my right impels me to pull forever at the latch on Freedom’s gate,” and “The Holy Spirit upon my left leads my feet without ceasing into the camp of the righteous and into the tents of the free.” Angelou places her trust in the Divine and the Holy Spirit, drawing her wisdom from their constant presence. This wisdom is lived, not abstract, revealed through continual movement toward freedom even in the face of adversity.
Angelou’s affirmation that she will “go forth alone, and stand as ten thousand” expresses the inner authority that cannot be denied by any external force. Her wisdom is grounded in a sacred belonging, an understanding that divine support makes perseverance possible. When she declares, “for I shall not be moved,” Angelou draws from the spiritual tradition her ancestors lived and sang, rooted in Jeremiah 17:7–8. Those who trust in God are like trees planted by water, resilient through every season.
By invoking women such as Harriet Tubman, Zora Neale Hurston, and Mary McLeod Bethune, Angelou honors a line of those who combined faith and action. Their steadfast pursuit of freedom and justice shaped the lives of future generations. In “Our Grandmothers,” Angelou reminds us that wisdom is found not only in standing firm, but in walking forward under the enduring guidance of the Divine.
Maya Angelou, Nancy Hanks Lecture on Arts and Public Policy
In her Nancy Hanks Lecture on Arts and Public Policy, given March 20, 1990, for the American Council for the Arts in Washington, DC, Maya Angelou addressed her audience with a question:
I often wonder what would happen if I could come face to face with a grandparent, a great-great-great-grandparent. Suppose you did? Just imagine. What would happen? Not a specter, a real person, 200 years old, who said, “So . . . You’re the reason I took the lash, you’re it, huh? So you’re the reason I took the auction block, and stayed alive . . . you’re it, are you? How is it with you? How are you doing with the gifts I gave you?”
She went on to describe how her grandmother and mother used to sing the African American spiritual “I Shall Not Be Moved” around the house. Its lyrics are based on Jeremiah 17:7–8: “Blessed are those who trust in the LORD, whose trust is the LORD. They shall be like a tree planted by water, sending out its roots by the stream. It shall not fear when heat comes, and its leaves shall stay green; in the year of drought it is not anxious, and it does not cease to bear fruit” (cf. Ps. 1:3; 62:6).
Angelou then talked about the importance of “being flexible so one can bend, resilient so that one can stand erect after being knocked down,” before proceeding to read her poem “Our Grandmothers.”
The poem celebrates the strong Black women who have gone before, that great cloud of witnesses, the ancestors, who stood firm in the face of all kinds of adversity, giving life to succeeding generations. The queen of Sheba (who gifted gold, spices, and jewels to King Solomon of Israel, as 1 Kings 10 relates, and who the ancient historian Josephus said ruled over Ethiopia and Egypt), abolitionist Harriet Tubman, writer Zora Neale Hurston, and educator and philanthropist Mary Bethune are among the women named. Self-assertive, tenacious, filled with holy desire, steadfast in the pursuit of freedom and justice.
Angelou is one of the most banned authors in the United States, particularly in high schools, where some districts deem her books inappropriate for their use of racial epithets and frank depictions of violence, including sexual assault. “Our Grandmothers” is mild by comparison to her first autobiography, but it does allude to lynching and rape and contains a litany of vulgar, demeaning names. She does not want to sugarcoat these realities, this history.
While acknowledging the suffering endured by Angelou’s female forebears, the poem is triumphant in tone. It’s that refusal to despair, that holding on to faith, that Angelou so admires and that impels her to join in that old refrain, composed in chains and having carried her people through countless trials and acts of resistance: “Like a tree planted by the water, I shall not be moved.”
—Jones, Victoria Emily. “‘Our Grandmothers’ by Maya Angelou (Poem).” Art & Theology, 7 Feb. 2025, https://artandtheology.org/2025/02/07/our-grandmothers-by-maya-angelou/.
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