Equality, And I Will Be Free.

Equality

You declare you see me dimly
through a glass which will not shine,
though I stand before you boldly,
trim in rank and making time.

You do own to hear me faintly
as a whisper out of range,
while my drums beat out the message
and the rhythms never change.

Equality, and I will be free.
Equality, and I will be free.

You announce my ways are wanton,
that I fly from man to man,
but if I'm just a shadow to you,
could you ever understand?

We have lived a painful history,
we know the shameful past,
but I keep on marching forward,
and you keep on coming last.

Equality, and I will be free.
Equality, and I will be free.

Take the blinders from your vision,
take the padding from your ears,
and confess you've heard me crying,
and admit you've seen my tears.

Hear the tempo so compelling,
hear the blood throb through my veins.
Yes, my drums are beating nightly,
and the rhythms never change.

Equality, and I will be free.
Equality, and I will be free.
-Maya Angelou

The first time I read this, I thought about African Americans, and how there was so much segregation in the United States involving them and whites. It all seems so long ago, but there was still segregation in the US when your grandparents were alive, maybe even your parents. I decided that the poem talked about how the African Americans were fighting for equality and acceptance in society when there was segregation. Maya Angelou is speaking to the white people that aren't accepting. She speaks of their ignorance toward her race, how they know that there should be equality and that they know African Americans wish for it, but don't want to stand up and take action against segregation.
This reminded me of the children's book that we read recently in class called Terrible Things, by Eve Bunting. It's an allegory of the Holocaust, and takes place in a quiet forest, until the "terrible things", which represent Nazis, come and start to take animals that have certain features away. When the terrible things wanted animals with quills, they take porcupines. When they wanted animals that swim, they take the frogs and fish. And each time an animal is taken away, the rest speak badly about it, even if they were friendly before they got taken by the terrible things. In the end, the last survivor thinks, "I wish that I could have stood up against the terrible things."
I think that this moral relates to the poem Equality, because it teaches readers to stand up against people, or even "things", that aren't doing the right thing. The poem teaches readers not to take ignorance as an answer, and to always fight for what you beleive in, which in both cases is equality, for all different types of people or animals, and the African Americans and the whites during segregation.
Another childhood book that the poem Equality relates to is Horton Hears A Who. Horton Hears A Who is about an elephant and his companions that are so small they live on a speck of dust. Others in the forest think that his friends are non-existent. In order to prove that they are real, the beings that live on the speck of dust gather together to make a loud enough noise so that the animals in the forest can hear it. All the villagers beat their drums and shout and scream and blow their whistles and play their loudest instruments. Still, the noise is not loud enough. The mayor runs all around town, in search of one more villager. Finally, he finds one: a little boy named Jojo. When this boy yelps, he makes the noise loud enough for the animals in the forest to hear, and finally their voices are heard, the animals in the forest accept them for who they are, despite their shock that such a small creature could even exist, on a piece of dust no less!
All three authors are telling the reader the same thing: Stand up for what you beleive in, because without a person that's willing to speak their mind toward a person who's doing the wrong thing, their voice will never be heard.