Maya Angelou Knows Why the Caged Bird Sings.

The well-known black writer, Maya Angelou, spoke memorably about the problems she went through as a girl in her autobiography called “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.” This book, which covered her first 17 years, was just the first of eight that Maya wrote about her life. This one is the most famous, however, and gives a great number of reasons that Maya’s life was never easy, even though she became famous as a speaker and writer.

When she was just three years old, for example, she and Bailey, her four-year-old brother, were sent away by their mother in California and had to take a train to Stamp, Arkansas to live with their grandmother. While they were riding on the train, the porter who was supposed to be in charge, abandoned them in Arizona. After that, the two had to travel the rest of the way with pieces of paper tacked on their bodies, listing their final destination and stating simply, “To Whom It Might Concern.”

Also, even when she was very young Maya constantly heard from others that she was ugly. She has kinky hair and dark skin, and she was always large for her age. 

Her grandmother, whom she called “Mooma,” had a food store in Stamp, and little Maya ate far too much free candy through her childhood. Eventually two of her teeth became downright rotten, and she was in great pain. Her grandmother bravely took her to the office of a local white dentist, one of many folks of both races for whom she had done favors during the difficult 30s.

After they sat for over an hour in the hot sun behind his office, the dentist finally came out and absolutely refused to deal with Maya’s problem. “My policy,” he insisted, “is that I’d rather stick my hand in a dog’s mouth than in a nigger’s.” (The paper left this sentence out!! I certainly didn't mean to show prejudice, but I do understand why they did that.) She and her mother therefore had to travel over 30 miles by bus to have her cared for by a black dentist.

When she was eight, she was raped by her mother’s boyfriend, Freeman. He told her he would kill her brother if she told anyone what had happened. She eventually had to explain in a trial who had raped her, but he didn’t have a chance to kill her brother because he himself was killed very soon after the trial.

By the time she turned 16, Maya worried that with all of her other problems--and perhaps because she was still suffering from being raped--she just might be a lesbian. In order to prove to herself that this was not true, she indulged in sex with a young man, even though she didn’t really care for him. Although this happened only once, she found herself pregnant. She was able to finish high school by hiding her situation as long as possible, but then she had a baby boy whom she had to raise all alone.
True enough, I think Maya would agree that racial prejudice is not as obvious these days as it was in her childhood. 

But still, as Bill Cosby, the black American comedian, actor, author, television producer, educator, musician and activist put it so well, “By the 1960s, many of us believed that the Civil Rights Movement could eliminate racism in America during our lifetime. But despite significant progress, racism remains.”