A BLACK WOMAN'S SMILE BY TY GRAY EL: SPOKEN WORD

Everything Happens For a Reason

"Everything Happens for a Reason" Sometimes people come into your life and you know right away that they were meant to be there, to serve some sort of purpose, teach you a lesson, or to help you figure out who you are or who you want to become. You never know who these people may be (possibly your roommate, neighbor, teacher, fraternal brother or sister, long lost friend, lover, or even a complete stranger), but when you lock eyes with them, you know that at that very moment they will affect your life in some profound way. And sometimes things happen to you that may seem horrible, painful, and unfair at first, but in reflection you find that without overcoming those obstacles you would have never realized your potential, strength, willpower, or heart. Everything happens for a reason. Nothing happens by chance or by means of good luck. Illness, injury, love, lost moments of true greatness, and sheer stupidity all occur to test the limits of your soul. Without the small tests, whatever they may be, life would be like a smoothly paved, straight flat road to nowhere. It would be safe and comfortable, but dull and utterly pointless. The people you meet who affect your life, and the success and downfalls you experience, help to create who you are and who you become. Even the bad experiences can be learned from. In fact, they are probably the most poignant and important ones. If someone hurts you, betrays you, or breaks your heart, forgive them, for they have helped you learn about trust and the importance of being cautious to when you open your heart. If someone loves you, love them back unconditionally, not only because they love you, but because in a way, they are teaching you to love and how to open your heart and eyes to things. Make every day count. Appreciate every moment and take from those moments everything that you possibly can for you may never be able to experience it again. Talk to people that you have never talked to before, and actually listen. Let yourself fall in love, break free, and set your sights high. Hold your head up because you have every right to. Tell yourself you are a great individual and believe in yourself, for if you don’t believe in yourself, it will be hard for others to believe in you. You can make your life anything you wish. Create your own life and then go out and live it with absolutely no regrets. Most importantly, if you love someone tell them, for you never know what tomorrow may have in store. And finally, enjoy looking forward to learning a new lesson each day and enjoying the journey.

Julianne Malveaux News Update Promo

Oh, THIS is JULIANNE Malveaux --- but of COURSE!   Why was I thinking SUZANNE Malveaux.
Momma got the goods on and has had for a very long time.  A great speaker and one to be reckoned with.

Shihan - Father's Day

Def Poetry - Black Ice - Or Die

Sunni Patterson - We Made It

Talib Kweli - Def Poetry Jam

Def Poetry Jam- Alicia Keys

Def Poetry: Floetry- "Fantasize" (Official Video)

Def Poetry: Jill Scott

Amazing  POETRY in SONG . . . .

Stayceyann Chin "Feminist or a Womanist"

"I will be a hummingbird" - Wangari Maathai

A Poem for Dreamers

       A Poem for Dreamers
Written by ShyPoet1

    You lean into my eyes and you see rivers
Old rivers that stagnate in the past
Their fingers touch floors of this world
And wrap around the Blackness of my skin
Muddy, long, wet rivers
Like my 'peoples' path
And they flow everywhere

    In the deep brown scars in my eyes
You see how things used to be ...
Pyramids
And chains
And master mentality arrangements ...
Rigged hard like hot cotton fields
And you hope they never change
You see what you were told to see,
But, I, only wanted you to see me

   Now I talk to rivers
And the rivers talk back to me
They linger like dreams
And spread their life to everywhere
Like my 'peoples'
Even on the shores of a defeatist society ...

   Now I walk in deserts
Deserts of broken hopes and dreams
They seem to be everywhere ...
Black and White and blue ... - Yellow too
Now I see deserts of my people
But, I'm left wondering if ...
They truly see themselves?
As these old rivers, and truth, dry up to dust ....

   So many rivers have flowed through us
In bright and lustrous hearts
Poets remind us of what we can still be,
Maya
Langston
Malcolm X and Martin too ...
And many new Poets flew ...

   No, not like raisons dying in the sun
No, not like servants and lesser things
No, not like inferiors and a doomed beings ...
But, like Captains and Presidents
Soon we'll be Saints and Saviors too ...
And all American heroes for you ...

   Dreamers and cloud walkers
My 'peoples', my hopes
-- All walked inside the dream
They made dreams reality;
In the highlands and the low lands
The rivers flowed ...

   In dark darkness and smooth light
Like my 'peoples'
Each one of them, will love you too ...
And someday, the rivers
Like my 'peoples'
Shall flow again
Great the vision and dreams
Wise the rivers flow ...

Dr. Maya Angelou - Love Liberates

Mom & Me & Mom,

      from Mom & Me & Mom, by Maya Angelou (2013), to share with you



       Frequently, I have been asked how I got to be this way. How did I, born black in a white country, poor in a society where wealth is adored and sought after at all costs, female in an environment where only large ships and some engines are described favorably by using the female pronoun—how did I get to be Maya Angelou?

Many times I have wanted to quote Topsy, the young black girl in Uncle Tom’s Cabin. I have been tempted to say, “I dunno. I just growed.” I never used that response, for a number of reasons. First, because I read the book in my early teens and the ignorant black girl embarrassed me. Second, I knew that I had become the woman I am because of the grandmother I loved and the mother I came to adore.

Their love informed, educated, and liberated me. I lived with my paternal grandmother from the time I was three years old until I was thirteen. My grandmother never kissed me during those years. However, when she had company, she would summon me to stand in front of her visitors. Then she would stroke my arms asking, “Have you ever seen arms more beautiful, straight as a plank and brown as peanut butter?” Or she would give me a tablet and a pencil. She would call out numbers to me in front of her company.

“All right sister, put 242, then 380, then 174, then 419; now add that.” She would speak to the visitors, “Now watch. Her uncle Willie has timed her. She can finish that in two minutes. Just wait.”

When I told the answer, she would beam with pride. “See? My little professor.”

Love heals. Heals and liberates. I use the word love, not meaning sentimentality, but a condition so strong that it may be that which holds the stars in their heavenly positions and that which causes the blood to flow orderly in our veins.

This book has been written to examine some of the ways love heals and helps a person to climb impossible heights and rise from immeasurable depths.

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poetry i love (playlist)

poetry i love (playlist)

poetry i love (playlist)

Bama The Village Poet "Nothingness"

Bama-Welfare Slave

Bama-I Got Soul

Blackman My Brother - Bama the Village Poet

Black Girls Rock! Thanks to real Black men (playlist)

Poetry can be found as lyrics in a song. Here is example of beautiful and meaningful lyrics which really is a form of poetry as shown here in this video. Think of this as poetry as you listen to this song.

Who Is Sara Baartman Every black woman should know her name

Listen to this astonishing history lesson about this historical black woman.  Then the amazing poem which follows will become much more meaningful.  This is suitable only for the mature.

T. Miller - Poetry Slam Winner

The Greatest Poet You've Never Heard (Is 12 Yrs Old)

12-Yr-Old Slam Poet Will Make You Feel...

Christian Poetry Slam One Minute Sermon

DMX - Ready to meet him

DMX Prayer 1 - 5

DMX - The Prayer (with words)

Driven Conference: Janette...ikz P4CM

P4CM: We are GENERATION EX!

Allow me to re-introduce the Christ

ALMOST (saved) by Official P4CM Poet Ezekiel Azonwu

P4CM Presents I'm Stupid Juiced! by Official P4CM Poet Eric Vaughn

George Jackson

Bob Dylan, George Jackson (1971)

I woke up this mornin',
There were tears in my bed.
They killed a man I really loved
Shot him through the head.
Lord, Lord,
They cut George Jackson down.
Lord, Lord,
They laid him in the ground.

Sent him off to prison
For a seventy-dollar robbery.
Closed the door behind him
And they threw away the key.
Lord, Lord,
They cut George Jackson down.
Lord, Lord,
They laid him in the ground.

He wouldn't take shit from no one
He wouldn't bow down or kneel.
Authorities, they hated him
Because he was just too real.
Lord, Lord,
They cut George Jackson down.
Lord, Lord,
They laid him in the ground.

Prison guards, they cursed him
As they watched him from above
But they were frightened of his power
They were scared of his love.
Lord, Lord,
So they cut George Jackson down.
Lord, Lord,
They laid him in the ground.

Sometimes I think this whole world
Is one big prison yard.
Some of us are prisoners
The rest of us are guards.
Lord, Lord,
They cut George Jackson down.
Lord, Lord,
They laid him in the ground.

Buffalo Soldier

Bob Marley (Buffalo Soldier)

Buffalo soldier, dreadlock rasta:
There was a buffalo soldier in the heart of America,
Stolen from Africa, brought to America,
Fighting on arrival, fighting for survival.

I mean it, when I analyze the stench -
To me it makes a lot of sense:
How the dreadlock rasta was the buffalo soldier,
And he was taken from africa, brought to America,
Fighting on arrival, fighting for survival.

Said he was a buffalo soldier, dreadlock rasta -
Buffalo soldier in the heart of America.

If you know your history,
Then you would know where you coming from,
Then you wouldn’t have to ask me,
Who the ’eck do I think I am.

I’m just a buffalo soldier in the heart of America,
Stolen from Africa, brought to America,
Said he was fighting on arrival, fighting for survival;
Said he was a buffalo soldier win the war for America.

Dreadie, woy yoy yoy, woy yoy-yoy yoy,
Woy yoy yoy yoy, yoy yoy-yoy yoy!
Woy yoy yoy, woy yoy-yoy yoy,
Woy yoy yoy yoy, yoy yoy-yoy yoy!
Buffalo soldier troddin’ through the land, wo-ho-ooh!
Said he wanna ran, then you wanna hand,
Troddin’ through the land, yea-hea, yea-ea.

Said he was a buffalo soldier win the war for America;
Buffalo soldier, dreadlock rasta,
Fighting on arrival, fighting for survival;
Driven from the mainland to the heart of the Caribbean.

Troddin’ through San Juan in the arms of America;
Troddin’ through Jamaica, a buffalo soldier -
Fighting on arrival, fighting for survival:
Buffalo soldier, dreadlock rasta.

Freedom Riders

Freedom Riders, Phil Ochs (1962)

Jackson, Mississippi, is a mighty white town,
the white folks they like to keep the black folks down
they think they'll be allright, but there's gonna be a fight
and they'll have to share that freedom crown,
yes, they'll have to share that freedom crown.

Freedom Riders roll along
Freedom Riders won't be long
won't be long.

They boarded a bus in Washington D.C.
to enter a state half slave and half free
the wheels hummed a song and they sang along
the song of liberty, the song of liberty.

Jimmy Farmer was a hard fightin' man
decided one day that he had to make a stand
he led them down to slavery town
and they threw Jim Farmer in the can
and they threw Jim Farmer in the can.

One of these days and it won't be long
the solid South is gonna sing another song
They'll understand that a man's not a man
'til he has all the freedoms of the land.