Entry · catalog no. 3614
give someone their flowers
/ /ɡɪv ˈsʌm.wʌn ðɛr ˈflaʊ.ɚz/ /giv SUHM-wun thair FLOW-erz
phrase · The Black press and the Black church, national · 1930s
✓ Verified
1.
To praise, credit, or celebrate a living person rather than saving the tribute for the eulogy.
“Auntie held that choir together thirty years; we're giving her her flowers this Sunday, not at her homegoing.”
2.
In the shortened modern form, to publicly acknowledge somebody's overlooked work or skill, with the funeral frame mostly gone.
“Give that engineer her flowers — she mixed the whole record in a week.”
Origin & Attribution
The sentiment — bring the flowers now, not to the funeral — is late nineteenth-century American pulpit rhetoric and was not Black to begin with. What is Black is the fixing of it into an idiom, and that happened in the Black press and the Black church between the 1930s and the 1950s. The Philadelphia Tribune printed it on 6 March 1930. W. C. Handy's brother told the Chicago Defender in 1943 that Handy's lifelong philosophy was to give him his flowers while he could still smell them. The Consolers — Sullivan and Iola Pugh of Miami — cut "Give Me My Flowers" for Nashboro in 1955, and by 7 March 1956 Marion E. Jackson was using the bare modern form as a standalone line in the Atlanta Daily World. Correct the attribution that dominates the internet: Kanye West's "Big Brother" in 2007 popularized the phrase for a generation, but it arrived more than fifty years after the Consolers and more than seventy after the Tribune.
1930
The Philadelphia Tribune prints the phrase on 6 March
1955
The Consolers record "Give Me My Flowers" for Nashboro, fixing it in gospel
1956
The Atlanta Daily World uses the bare modern form as a standalone line on 7 March
Region of origin
West
Midwest
N.East
South
Nationwide / diaspora
The Black press and the Black church, national · 1930s
Spoken by
Black congregations, Black newspaper columnists, and gospel singers — now rappers, athletes, and anybody giving somebody their credit
$GIVESOThe Record · cultural traction
▲ Rising77 yrs
ahead of the mainstream
95/100
peak cultural energy
Introduced to English by the culture — logged here before the mainstream caught on.
Cultural usage — the recordMainstream search interest
First used
1930
in the culture
Mainstream crossover
2007
search interest spikes
Cultural energy indexed from documented usage, search interest, and citation frequency. The recorded date is the archive’s permanent point of record.
Hear it spoken
By region — how it actually sounds
@auntiereg
Atlanta, GA
@deltasoul
Memphis, TN
Contribute your pronunciation
Citations & Sources
■
Philadelphia Tribune, 6 March 1930, p. 12
newspaper
■
Chicago Defender, 27 November 1943, p. 20
newspaper
■
The Consolers, "Give Me My Flowers," Nashboro Records, 1955
record
■
Marion E. Jackson, "Sports of the World," Atlanta Daily World, 7 March 1956, p. 7
newspaper
■
+ Cite a sourceRev. James Cleveland with the Angelic Choir, Volume 5: Give Me My Flowers, Savoy, 1965
record
See also