I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings | The Fight against Racism

Eller is an assistant professor of English at Northeast Louisiana University. In the following essay, he examines how the autobiographical story of Marguerite Johnson can stand in for the larger experience of African Americans fighting racism.

Encouraged by her editor and family to remember and write about her childhood, Maya Angelou produced the first of five autobiographies and the literary work for which she is probably best known, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. She acknowledges them by writing, "I thank my mother, Vivian Baxter, and my bother, Bailey Johnson, who encouraged me to remember. And a final thanks to my editor at Random House, Robert Loomis, who gently prodded me back into the lost years." Perhaps those memories have assisted her in her diverse and incredibly productive career. In addition to the...

[The entire page is 1817 words long]

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