We Speak Your Names (Library Edition)

In the tradition of Maya Angelou’s Phenomenal Woman, best-selling author Pearl Cleage brings us an inspiring poem for all women, destined to become a classic.

Cleage refers to We Speak Your Names as a “celebration” which is part of an oral tradition that encompasses the entire history of the African-American experience. This tradition, she says, grew out of an understanding that “some things must be spoken out loud to get where the magic is.” What results is a praise poem which acknowledges the legacy of those who have gone before, and a realization, “with a knowing deeper than the flow of human blood in human veins, that we are part of something better, truer, deeper.”