Organization: Samford University Writing Programs
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Date:         Wed, 27 Jan 1993 11:19:41 CST
From:         "David H. Roberts" <DHROBERT@SAMFORD.BITNET>

On Wed, 27 Jan 1993 08:37:35 EST Cindy Selfe said:
>David--
>
>Could you post the Maya Angelou poem on Megabyte?  I think there's several
>folks (including me) who would like a copy.  Thanks!
>

Here are both the Angelou poem and the Clinton address:
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From:         Tom Benson 814-865-4201 <T3B@PSUVM.BITNET>
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To:           David Roberts <DHROBERT@SAMFORD.BITNET>

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|                               CRTNET                               |
|                                                                    |
|                          January 26, 1993                          |
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|                            Number   706                            |
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|             COMMUNICATION RESEARCH AND THEORY NETWORK              |
|                                                                    |
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|            Edited by Tom Benson, Penn State University             |
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CONTENTS --

    --  Inaugural Address, President Bill Clinton,
         Washington, D.C., 20 January 1993
         (Jim Benjamin)

    --  Maya Angelou, Inaugural Poem, 20 January 1993


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President Bill Clinton's Inaugural Address
Washington, D.C.
January 20, 1993

     My Fellow Citizens, today we celebrate the mystery of
American renewal.

     This ceremony is held in the depth of winter.  But, by
the words we speak and the faces we show the world, we force
the spring.  A spring reborn in the world's oldest
democracy, that brings forth the vision and courage to
reinvent America.

     When our Founders boldly declared America's
independence to the world and our purposes to the Almighty,
they knew that America, to endure, would have to change.
Not change for change sake, but change to preserve America's
ideals ~ life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness.  Though we
march to the music of our time, our mission is timeless.
Each generation of Americans must define what it means to be
an American.

     On behalf of our nation, I salute my predecessor,
President Bush, for his half-century of service to America.

     And I thank the millions of men and women whose
steadfastness and sacrifice triumphed over Depression,
fascism, and communism.

     Today, a generation raised in the shadows of the Cold
War assumes new responsibilities in a world warmed by the
sunshine of freedom but threatened still by ancient hatreds
and new plagues.

     Raised in unrivaled prosperity, we inherit an economy
that is still the world's strongest, but is weakened by
business failures, stagnant wages, increasing inequality,
and deep divisions among our own people.

     When George Washington first took the oath I have just
sworn to uphold, news travelled slowly across the land by
horseback and across the ocean by boat.  Now the sights and
sounds of this ceremony are broadcast instantaneously to
billions around the world.

     Communications and commerce are global; investment is
mobile; technology is almost magical; and ambition for a
better life is now universal.  We earn our livelihood in
America today in peaceful competition with people all across
the earth.

     Profound and powerful forces are shaking and remaking
our world, and the urgent question of our time is whether we
can make change our friend and not our enemy.

     This new world has already enriched the lives of
millions of Americans who are able to compete and win in it.
But when most people are working harder for less; when
others cannot work at all; when the cost of health care
devastates families and threatens to bankrupt our
enterprises great and small; when the fear of crime robs
law-abiding citizens of their freedom; and when millions of
poor children cannot even imagine the lives we are calling
them to lead ~ we have not made change our friend.

     We know we have to face hard truths and take strong
steps.  But we have not done so.  Instead, we have drifted,
and that drifting has eroded our resources, fractured our
economy, and shaken our confidence.

     Though our challenges are fearsome, so are our
strengths.  Americans have ever been a restless, questing,
hopeful people.  And we must bring to our task today the
vision and will of those who came before us.

     From our revolution to the Civil War to the Great
Depression to the civil rights movement, our people have
always mustered the determination to construct from these
crises the pillars of our history.

     Thomas Jefferson believed that to preserve the very
foundations of our nation, we would need dramatic change
from time to time.  Well, my fellow Americans, this is our
time, let us embrace it.

     Our democracy must be not only the envy of the world
but the engine of our own renewal.  There is nothing wrong
with America that cannot be cured by what is right with
America.

     And so today, we pledge an end to the era of deadlock
and drift ~ and a new season of American renewal has begun.

     To renew America, we must be bold.

     We must do what no generation has had to do before.  We
must invest more in our own people, in their jobs, and in
their future, and at the same time cut our massive debt.
And we must do so in a world in which we must compete for
every opportunity.

     It will not be easy; it will require sacrifice.  But it
can be done, and done fairly, not choosing sacrifice for its
own sake but for our own sake.  We must provide for our
nation the way a family provides for its children.

     Our Founders saw themselves in the light of posterity.
We can do no less.  Anyone who has ever watched a child's
eyes wander into sleep knows what posterity is.  Posterity
is the world to come ~ the world for whom we hold our
ideals, from whom we have borrowed our planet, and to whom
we bear sacred responsibility.

     We must do what America does best: offer more
opportunity to all and demand more responsibility from all.

     It is time to break the bad habit of expecting
something for nothing, from our government or from each
other.  Let us all take more responsibility, not only for
ourselves and our families but for our communities and our
country.

     To renew America, we must revitalize our democracy.

     This beautiful capital, like every capital since the
dawn of civilization, is often a place of intrigue and
calculation.  Powerful people maneuver for position and
worry endlessly about who is in and who is out, who is up
and who is down, forgetting those people whose toil and
sweat sends us here and pays our way.

     Americans deserve better, and in this city today, there
are people who want to do better.  And so I say to all of
you here, let us resolve to reform our politics so that
power and privilege no longer shout down the voice of the
people.  Let us put aside personal advantage so that we can
feel the pain and see the promise of America.

     Let us resolve to make our government a place for what
Franklin Roosevelt called "bold, persistent
experimentation," a government for our tomorrows, not our
yesterdays.

     Let us give this capital back to the people to whom it
belongs.

     To renew America, we must meet challenges abroad as
well as at home.  There is no longer a clear division
between what is foreign and what is domestic ~ the world
economy, the world environment, the world AIDS crisis, the
world arms race ~ they affect us all.

     Today, as an old order passes, the new world is more
free but less stable.  Communism's collapse has called forth
old animosities and new dangers.  Clearly America must
continue to lead the world we did so much to make.

     While America rebuilds at home, we will not shrink from
the challenges, nor fail to seize the opportunities, of this
new world.  Together with our friends and allies, we will
work to shape change, lest it engulf us.

     When our vital interests are challenged, or the will
and conscience of the international community is defied, we
will act ~ with peaceful diplomacy whenever possible, with
force when necessary.  The brave Americans serving our
nation today in the Persian Gulf, in Somalia, and wherever
else they stand are testament to our resolve.

     But our greatest strength is the power of our ideas,
which are still new in many lands.  Across the world we see
them embraced ~ and we rejoice.  Our hopes, our hearts, our
hands are with those on every continent who are building
democracy and freedom.  Their cause is America's cause.

     The American people have summoned the change we
celebrate today.  You have raised your voices in an
unmistakable chorus.  You have cast your votes in historic
numbers.  And you have changed the face of Congress, the
presidency, and the political process itself.  Yes, you, my
fellow Americans, have forced the Spring.  Now, we must do
the work the season demands.

     To that work I now turn with all the authority of my
office.  I ask the Congress to join with me.  But no
president, no Congress, no government can undertake this
mission alone. My fellow Americans, you, too, must play your
part in our renewal.  I challenge a new generation of young
Americans to a season of service ~ to act on your idealism
by helping troubled children, keeping company with those in
need, reconnecting our torn communities.  There is so much
to be done ~ enough indeed for millions of others who are
still young in spirit to give of themselves in service, too.

     In serving, we recognize a simple but powerful truth ~
we need each other.  And we must care for one another.
Today we do more than celebrate America; we rededicate
ourselves to the very idea of America.

     An idea born in revolution and renewed through two
centuries of challenge. An idea tempered by the knowledge
that, but for fate, we ~ the fortunate and the unfortunate ~
might have been each other.  An idea ennobled by the faith
that our nation can summon from its myriad diversity, the
deepest measure of unity.  An idea infused with the
conviction that America's long, heroic journey must go
forever upward.

     And so, my fellow Americans, as we stand at the edge of
the 21st Century, let us begin anew with energy and hope,
with faith and discipline, and let us work until our work is
done.  The scripture says, "And let us not be weary in well-
doing, for in due season, we shall reap, if we faint not."

     From this joyful mountaintop of celebration, we hear a
call to service in the valley.  We have heard the trumpets,
we have changed the guard. And now, each in our own way, and
with God's help, we must answer the call.

Thank you and God bless you all.


/transcript by James Benjamin, Department of Communication,
University of Toledo/

===========================================================


Subject: Maya Angelou inaugural poem
Date:    21 Jan 1993 21:07:15 GMT

[Maya Angelou composed this poem and read it at the
inauguration of President Bill Clinton, January 20, 1993]



A Rock, A River, A Tree
Hosts to species long since departed,
Marked the mastodon.

The dinosaur, who left dry tokens
Of their sojourn here
On our planet floor,
Any broad alarm of their hastening doom
Is lost in the gloom of dust and ages.

But today, the Rock cries out to us, clearly, forcefully,
Come, you may stand upon my
Back and face your distant destiny,
But seek no haven in my shadow.

I will give you no more hiding place down here.

You, created only a little lower than
The angels, have crouched too long in
The bruising darkness,
Have lain too long
Face down in ignorance.

Your mouths spilling words
Armed for slaughter.

The Rock cries out today, you may stand on me,
But do not hide your face.

Across the wall of the world,
A River sings a beautiful song,
Come rest here by my side.

Each of you a bordered country,
Delicate and strangely made proud,
Yet thrusting perpetually under siege.

Your armed struggles for profit
Have left collars of waste upon
My shore, currents of debris upon my breast.

Yet, today I call you to my riverside,
If you will study war no more. Come,

Clad in peace and I will sing the songs
The Creator gave to me when I and the
Tree and the stone were one.

Before cynicism was a bloody sear across your
Brow and when you yet knew you still
Knew nothing.

The River sings and sings on.

There is a true yearning to respond to
The singing River and the wise Rock.

So say the Asian, the Hispanic, the Jew
The African and Native American, the Sioux,
The Catholic, the Muslim, the French, the Greek
The Irish, the Rabbi, the Priest, the Sheikh,
The Gay, the Straight, the Preacher,
The privileged, the homeless, the Teacher.
They hear. They all hear
The speaking of the Tree.

Today, the first and last of every Tree
Speaks to humankind. Come to me, here beside the River.

Plant yourself beside me, here beside the River.

Each of you, descendant of some passed
On traveller, has been paid for.

You, who gave me my first name, you
Pawnee, Apache and Seneca, you
Cherokee Nation, who rested with me, then
Forced on bloody feet, left me to the employment of
Other seekers--desperate for gain,
Starving for gold.

You, the Turk, the Swede, the German, the Scot ...
You the Ashanti, the Yoruba, the Kru, bought
Sold, stolen, arriving on a nightmare
Praying for a dream.

Here, root yourselves beside me.

I am the Tree planted by the River,
Which will not be moved.

I, the Rock, I the River, I the Tree
I am yours--your Passages have been paid.

Lift up your faces, you have a piercing need
For this bright morning dawning for you.

History, despite its wrenching pain,
Cannot be unlived, and if faced
With courage, need not be lived again.

Lift up your eyes upon
The day breaking for you.

Give birth again
To the dream.

Women, children, men,
Take it into the palms of your hands.

Mold it into the shape of your most
Private need. Sculpt it into
The image of your most public self.
Lift up your hearts
Each new hour holds new chances
For new beginnings.

Do not be wedded forever
To fear, yoked eternally
To brutishness.

The horizon leans forward,
Offering you space to place new steps of change.
Here, on the pulse of this fine day
You may have the courage
To look up and out upon me, the
Rock, the River, the Tree, your country.

No less to Midas than the mendicant.

No less to you now than the mastodon then.

Here on the pulse of this new day
You may have the grace to look up and out
And into your sister's eyes, into
Your brother's face, your country
And say simply
Very simply
With hope
Good morning.


========================================================

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   __________________________________________
   David H. Roberts
   Director of University Writing Programs
   Samford University
   Birmingham, AL 35229-2207 USA
   Voice: (205) 870-2964; Fax: (205) 870-2384
   Bitnet:  DHROBERT@SAMFORD
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