And who will join this standing up and the ones who stood without sweet company will sing and sing back into the mountains and if necessary even under the sea: we are the ones we have been waiting for.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes the importance of collective action and self-reliance in creating change.
In this quote, June Jordan articulates a call to action for individuals to come together in solidarity, suggesting that true change depends on the collective efforts of people. By stating that 'we are the ones we have been waiting for,' she reinforces the idea that we should not wait for external forces to bring about change, but rather take initiative ourselves as a united front, even in the face of challenges.
In practice
This quote can be used to inspire a community gathering focused on social justice.
I am a feminist, and what that means to me is much the same as the meaning of the fact that I am Black: it means that I must undertake to love myself and to respect myself as though my very life depends upon self-love and self-respect.
Anytime you see white men suppose to fight each other an you not white, well you know you got trouble, because they blah-blah loud about Democrat or Republican an they huffing an puff about democracy someplace else but relentless, see, the deal come down evil on somebody don have no shirt an tie, somebody don live in no whiteman house no whiteman country.
In America, the traditional routes to black identity have hardly been normal. Suicide (disappearance by imitation, or willed extinction), violence (hysterical religiosity, crime, armed revolt), and exemplary moral courage; none of these is normal.
Good poetry and successful revolution change our lives. And you cannot compose a good poem or wage a revolution without changing consciousness unless you attack the language that you share with your enemies and invent a language that you share with your allies.
As a poet and writer, I deeply love and I deeply hate words. I love the infinite evidence and change and requirements and possibilities of language; every human use of words that is joyful, or honest or new, because experience is new... But as a Black poet and writer, I hate words that cancel my name and my history and the freedom of my future: I hate the words that condemn and refuse the language of my people in America.
I am the history of the rejection of who I am
You cannot look up at the night sky on the Planet Earth and not wonder what it's like to be up there amongst the stars. And I always look up at the moon and see it as the single most romantic place within the cosmos.
The element of discovery is very important. I don't repeat myself well. I want and need that stimulus of walking forward from one new world to another.
When kids want a picture or autograph, you reflect later on and realize you did something good. Then you see them come back five years later, they're all grown up, have their own lives and they tell you how much you inspired them. You're like, 'Whoa.'
Let us be aware of our power to create a dream of heaven where everything is possible. Help us to use our imagination to guide the dream of our life, the magic of our creation. Today let something extraordinary happen that will change our life forever; let everything we do and say be an expression of the beauty in our heart, always based on love
Even if I don't finish, we need others to continue. It's got to keep going without me.
It was the combination of hard work and a hand up that allowed me to become one of the first women to fly in combat missions and achieve my American Dream.
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