Glenn Ligon USA, b. 1960

This quote is taken from an interview between Toni Morrison and Charlie Rose on the topic of the 1991 beating of Rodney King and the subsequent 1992 L.A. Riots.

Glenn Ligon’s work often functions like a charge—an aesthetic and political current that refuses to dim. In this piece, Ligon renders a searing quote from Maya Angelou, reflecting on the 1992 Los Angeles uprising after the acquittal of the police officers who brutally beat Rodney King.

“The most remarkable thing to me about Rodney King and what happened afterward was people kept saying, ‘Oh, this is a terrible explosion. Oh, the riots. Oh, this is awful and could have been avoided.’ What struck me most… was how long they waited. It was strange. Not the spontaneity—the restraint. You realize the moment to be anarchic was when you saw those tapes. They waited… They waited for justice almost a year, and it didn’t come.”

Ligon stencils the words in his signature, fractured typography—pressing them into the surface like bruises that won’t heal. The quote speaks not just to rage, but to the unbearable patience that precedes it. To the silence. The waiting. The denial of dignity.
Paired with this tender, powerful photograph of Maya Angelou—her body turned inward, inscribed with personal dedication—we’re reminded that justice is not only structural, but intimate. It lives in the body, in memory, in the right to be seen, named, and protected.