What We’re For
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When we press for what we stand for—instead of only naming what we won't stand for—we help create the positive public outcomes that uplift all our families, all our neighborhoods, all our communities.
We draw inspiration from Amanda Gorman’s 2021 Inauguration poem, “The Hill We Climb.”
Here, we present selected excerpts; you can buy the full poem as part of her book by the same title.
Amanda Gorman
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We've braved the belly of the beast.
We've learned that quiet isn't always peace,
And the norms and notions of what "just is"
Isn't always justice.
And yet the dawn is ours before we knew it.
Somehow, we do it.
Somehow, we've weathered and witnessed
A nation that isn't broken, but simply
unfinished.
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To compose a country committed
To all cultures, colors, characters,
And conditions of man.
And so we lift our gazes not
To what stands between us,
But what stands before us.
We close the divide,
Because we know to put
Our future first, we must first
Put our differences aside.
We lay down our arms
So that we can reach our arms out to one
another.
We seek harm to none, and harmony for all.
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If we're to live up to our own time, then
victory
Won't lie in the blade, but in all the bridges
we've made.
That is the promised glade,
The hill we climb, if only we dare it:
Because being American is more than a
pride we inherit—
It's the past we step into, and how we
repair it.
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Amanda Gorman is the sixth and youngest poet, at age twenty-two, to deliver a poetry reading at a presidential inauguration. She is a committed activist who works on the local, national, and international levels to advocate for the environment, racial justice, and gender equality. Please visit theamandagorman.com.
