The speaker of “Still I Rise” is a Black American woman who defies the oppression she faces in her contemporary society. Although the speaker doesn’t announce her gender or racial identity in an obvious way, context clues gradually reveal that she’s a Black woman. For one thing, the speaker refers to herself as having characteristics such as “sassiness” (line 5) and “sexiness” (line 25), both of which are typically gendered feminine. She makes her gender identity more explicit in the seventh stanza, where she obliquely references her genitalia (lines 16–28):

     Does it come as a surprise
     That I dance like I’ve got diamonds
     At the meeting of my thighs?

The fact that the speaker is specifically a Black woman emerges in a similarly gradual way. The poem’s opening stanzas make it clear that the speaker belongs to a marginalized group, but it isn’t obvious which specific group she belongs to. Not until the final stanzas does it become clear that the speaker refers specifically to Black Americans. The first clue comes when she refers to herself as “a black ocean” (line 33), and the second comes when she alludes to her ancestors as slaves: “I rise / Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave, / I am the dream and the hope of the slave” (lines 38–40).

As a Black American woman, the speaker has faced discrimination due to her gender identity as well as her racial identity. But instead of bowing her head in shame, she stands tall, in proud defiance of a society that would prefer to “trod [her] in the very dirt” (line 3). She speaks with great self-confidence, responding to the oppressive expectations of her society. For instance, as a rejoinder to the assumption that she should act downcast and demure, she asks, “Does my haughtiness offend you?” (line 17). As this rhetorical question indicates, the speaker adopts a confrontational tone as she addresses the unspecified “you.” This second-person pronoun could be said to address the reader. However, it’s more compelling to interpret the “you” as a reference to American society as a whole. If we understand the “you” in this way, it’s easier to comprehend the significance of the speaker’s broad defiance of oppression:

     You may shoot me with your words,
     You may cut me with your eyes,
     You may kill me with your hatefulness,
     But still, like air, I’ll rise.

These lines (lines 21–24) express a generalized resistance to several forms of oppression: derogatory speech, disdainful glares, and hateful attitudes. Such forms of oppression belong not just to a single individual, but to a whole society.