My mom wanted to make sure I was prepared to grow up with Black

The poet and visionary Amanda Gorman, whose voice has risen like a golden trumpet for a new generation, once said: “My mom wanted to make sure I was prepared to grow up with Black skin in America.” In these words, there resounds not only the story of one mother and daughter, but the echo of countless ancestors who have lived, taught, and endured. This quote, simple yet profound, speaks to the burden and the beauty of identity—to the sacred duty of a parent who must prepare her child not just to live, but to survive, and not merely to survive, but to rise. It is a statement forged in the dual fires of love and truth: the love that protects, and the truth that must be faced.

The origin of this quote lies in Amanda Gorman’s reflections on her upbringing under the care of her mother, Joan Wicks, a single parent and schoolteacher. Her mother’s wisdom was not wrapped in luxury or ease—it was wrapped in vigilance, in courage, in the kind of love that tells a child the world is beautiful but also dangerous. To be Black in America, her mother knew, was to inherit both a crown and a cross. She wanted her daughter to be prepared—to know that her brilliance might not always be welcomed, that her voice might sometimes be doubted, and that her very existence could be judged before her words were even spoken. Yet she also wanted her to understand that within her skin lived the strength of generations—the resilience of those who had faced hatred and sung through it.

This teaching, born of experience, is ancient in its essence. For throughout time, those who have been marginalized or oppressed have passed on the wisdom of endurance. The Israelites told their children of Egypt so they would remember both bondage and deliverance. African mothers, torn from their homelands, whispered songs to their babies even as ships carried them into chains—songs that told them, You are still divine, even when the world says otherwise. Amanda Gorman’s mother stands in that same sacred lineage, preparing her child not for despair, but for dignity—not to be hardened by struggle, but to be strengthened by it.

In the larger history of America, this act of preparation has always been an act of love and resistance. Consider Ida B. Wells, born in 1862, who lost her parents to yellow fever as a child yet grew into one of the fiercest journalists and activists of her time. When she spoke against the horror of lynching, she knew the cost of her courage, yet she carried herself with regal defiance. Her upbringing, like Gorman’s, was one steeped in the awareness that to be Black and bold in America is to walk a narrow bridge between fear and faith. Mothers like Wells’s and Gorman’s do not raise their children to bow—they raise them to stand, even when standing means standing alone.

When Amanda speaks of being “prepared,” she does not speak of preparing for hatred alone. She speaks of being prepared for greatness—for the discipline, composure, and excellence that are required to claim one’s place in a world that might deny it. Her mother taught her not to meet ignorance with bitterness, but with brilliance; not to be silent when the world is unjust, but to speak with eloquence and purpose. This preparation is not merely defense—it is empowerment. It is the shaping of a mind and spirit strong enough to hold pain without breaking, and joy without guilt.

The lesson of this wisdom reaches far beyond race or nation: it is the duty of every generation to prepare the next for the realities of their world. Parents must teach their children both tenderness and toughness, both faith and foresight. To love a child is not to shield them from difficulty, but to equip them with courage. And to grow up with any kind of difference—whether of skin, belief, or circumstance—is to need both awareness and pride. The world will always test one’s identity, but the foundation of truth laid by a wise parent can never be shaken.

Therefore, my child, take these words as both remembrance and command. Be grateful for those who prepared you, who told you the truth even when it hurt, for they armed you with wisdom. And if you are called to guide another—whether child, student, or friend—do not soften the truth, but speak it with love. Teach them to carry themselves with grace under pressure, to turn their pain into poetry, their struggle into song.

For in the end, Amanda Gorman’s words remind us that preparation is the first act of liberation. Her mother’s love was both shield and sword, teaching her that though the world may be unjust, the spirit must remain unbroken. And so the daughter, once taught to endure, now teaches the world to hope. Thus, let all who hear this remember: to be “prepared to grow up with Black skin in America” is to inherit both struggle and strength—and through awareness, pride, and love, to transform that struggle into light.