Poetry Analysis: "Million Man March"

Poetry Analysis: “Million Man March,” Maya Angelou





The “Million Man March” Speaks of the slave days and what possibly enslaves the blacks still today. The poem is written in hope to end the discrimination against black people and for black people to receive the same civil rights as the white people. The poem starts with the injustice and effects of slavery on black people. Then it ends on the note of a spiritual renewal and bonding of all the black people.

As in verse two, the last two lines, “Unfortunately throughout history, you’ve worn a badge of shame.” They carry all this baggage around with them, passing it down to their children and grandchildren so they know that blacks were not always as free as they are now as far back as the 1800s.

In the sixth verse, “The hells we have lived through and live through still…” is talking about because “we have lived through all that hell, it has made us stronger and tougher at will.” In the third to last line of verse six, “I know that with each other we can make a ourselves whole” speaks of which we can get through this and will rise above as a long as we remain true to and love the family and stick together.

The ongoing theme(s) of the poem is to improve and keep improving yourselves and to get African Americans the rights, social status and the respect they deserve as long as they earned it. After all, as white people can sit around watch TV, eat, eventually quit their jobs and become a “slug.” Therefore, everyone who sits around and does nothing or works hard be treated equally.

The seventh verse speaks of getting together as one, putting their hands together simultaneously on this “meeting ground.” “Let’s come together and deal with each other with love, and let us get from the low road of indifference…”very powerful words written and shows the themes of the poem well.

The last two lines of the “Million Man March,” “The ancestors remind us, despite the history of pain we are a going-on people who will rise again.” Thus this, sounds like it could be taken aggressively, but Angelou does not intend it to mean as such. She speaks of love when she wrote this. Like so many of Maya Angelou’s poems, “Million Man March” is for and about people, mainly the black people, but as all people should be treated equally, and fairly.