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Maya Angelou is well-known everywhere in the world for her talent and her activism. I know why the caged bird sings was published in 1969 (yup, 40 years ago!) and is the first of her seven powerful and deeply inspiring autobiographies.

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In Stamps the segregation was so complete that most Black children didn’t really, absolutely know what whites looked like. (…) I remember never believing that whites were really real.

Maya Angelou

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HOW I PICKED I KNOW WHY THE CAGED BIRD SINGS

This memoir was everywhere on Bookstagram with lots of positive reviews and such a poetic name. That’s when I learn about Maya Angelou.

Besides her activism, she had real talent. She wrote seven autobiographies, as well as many poems and essays. But still, I hadn’t read any of her work… It was time to change this!

WHAT YOU CAN LEARN

The complete segregation in the US a few decades ago

When Maya Angelou explains that she had never seen a White person and even thought whites weren’t real, I understood all of it. Or at least I tried. How could I imagine leaving some neighbourhoods away from people and never knowing they exist.

When Maya Angelou got very bad tooth pain, I understood how big of a problem it was. No Black dentist was in their town and white dentists refused to cure Blacks, even one who had been lent money from her grandmother’s one. I couldn’t conceive how he left this young girl to suffer like hell without even an ounce of hesitation.

‘Annie, my policy is I’d rather stick my hand in a dog’s mouth than in a nigger’s‘

Maya Angelou

The education of some Black girls

I was disturbed by chats around me when I read about the period when Maya Angelou started learning everything about housekeeping. I was so inattentive, and more importantly very very naive, that I thought that this white woman was teaching her that so that she could find a husband, or in a better case be ’we’ll-educated’. But it wasn’t the case at all.

I was wrong about everything except for the fact that she was being taught housekeeping. In reality, it was the housekeeper of this white woman that was teaching her, so that she could do it herself for another mistress. I felt so numb! And it got worse when this mistress, who was not hers, renamed her at her convenience as she did before with her ’servant’.

The transformation of San Francisco’s Fillmore district

The historically black district, known as the “Harlem West”, was shared with Japanese-Americans until the latter were forced out during their racially-motivated 1942 internment of World War II. That’s when Southern Blacks arrived and took over the district.

In the early months of World War II, San Francisco’s Fillmore district, or the Western Addition, experienced a visible revolution. On the surface it appeared to be totally peaceful and almost a refutation of the term “revolution.” (…) The Japanese shops which sold products to Nisei customers were taken over by enterprising Negro businessmen, and in less than a year became permanent homes away from home for the newly arrived Southern Blacks. (…) As the Japanese disappeared, soundlessly and without protest, the Negroes entered with their loud jukeboxes, their just-released animosities and the relief of escape from Southern bonds. The Japanese area became San Francisco’s Harlem in a matter of months.

Maya Angelou

The roughness of Maya Angelou’s childhood

Her childhood was so eventful. From when she got sent away to her grandmother’s with her brother, to the sexual violence she went through, or even the month she spent in a junkyard with homeless children after the girlfriend of her father cut her out of jealousy. But still, she fought all of her life to prevent faith from drowning her.

For instance, before becoming San Francisco’s first Black streetcar conductor, the wiseness she proved after her first encounter with the secretary of the society struck me:

The miserable little encounter had nothing to do with me, the me of me, any more than it had to do with that silly clerk. The incident was a recurring dream, concocted years before by stupid whites and it eternally came back to haunt us all. The secretary and I were like Hamlet and Laertes in the final scene, where, because of harm done by one ancestor to another, we were bound to duel to the death. Also because the play must end somewhere. I went further than forgiving the clerk, I accepted her as a fellow victim of the same puppeteer.

Maya Angelou

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WHAT DID I GET OUT OF THIS BOOK?

• No matter how hard life beats you, there’s almost always a way to get back up
• Don’t wallow too much in self-pity, keep going

If you’ve read it, what did YOU get out of I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings? Did you enjoy reading this book review? Leave a comment below, or reach me on Instagram @just.another.good.story or by email at justanothergoodstory@gmail.com

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BONUS

One sentence in French about I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings that you can learn by heart to show off:
“Un récit autobiographique qui laisse entrevoir une lumière éclatante parmi l'obscurité ambiante.“

Post an Instagram story of you saying this sentence with your best French accent and tag me! I’ll watch and repost every single one of them!
Or simply leave me a comment telling me using Google translate how you would translate this sentence. As a French living in the UK with an Italian guy, I’m an expert at giving a completely different sense to what people say. Let me read what your brain made up!

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I really hope that you enjoyed reading this book review!
Interested in memoirs? You can read my review of A River in Darkness.
Come back soon
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YOUR QUESTIONS ANSWERED

Is Maya Angelou still alive?

Unfortunately, no. After receiving dozens of awards and more than 50 honorary degrees, she died on the morning of May 28, 2014, aged 86.

What to read after I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings?

Check out my other book reviews & find the next best reading for you!