Portrait of a Phenomenal Woman

“Portrait of a Phenomenal Woman,” created by Lava Thomas, is a nine-foot-tall bronze monument honoring award-winning poet, author, and speaker Maya Angelou, located at the San Francisco Main Library. Unveiled in September 2024, it is the first public monument in San Francisco’s Civic Art Collection dedicated to a Black woman in San Francisco. The sculpture is shaped like a book, a tribute to Angelou’s legacy as a writer and poet, and features the inscription “Still I Rise” at its base. The reverse side features a quote:

"Information helps you to see that you're not alone. That there's somebody in Mississippi and somebody in Tokyo who all have wept, who've all longed and lost, who've all been happy. So the library helps you to see, not only that you are not alone, but that you're not really any different from everyone else".