Internet Resources About the Book & Maya Angelou:
A Guide to Some Things In The Book:
- The phrase "I know why the caged bird sings" comes from the poem at the bottom of the page by the African-American poet Paul Lawrence Dunbar. You can hear Maya Angelou reading that poem at the beginning of this interview for National Public Radio in the United States, with Diane Rehm.
- The little town of Stamps, Arkansas can be found on the EduTech Literary Map of the state.
- Vocabulary.com has a list of SAT-ish vocabulary words to be found in each chapter of the book.
- An important part of this book is the church, and its role in the Johnson household and the entire Stamps Black community. An Introduction to the Church in Southern Black America is a small part of a University of North Carolina resource on the web called "The Church in the Southern Black Community: 1780-1925".
- It's clear from the first chapters that one of the main employments for Black workers in Stamps is picking cotton. It was (and still is) a tough, back-breaking job. Here is a photo of women picking cotton, from the University of Texas. Another picture of cotton pickers clearly shows the long bags Maya Angelou describes in Chapter 1 of the book.
- Why, in Chapter 3, would Uncle Willie spend a night covered in onions and potatoes, crouched in a wooden vegetable bin? He was afraid of being lynched by the Ku Klux Klan, or any other group of white townspeople. Lynching is a sad and violent thread in American history. One sickening aspect of it is a reason the practice is so well-documented: pictures were often taken as souvenirs of the event, sometimes even passed out as postcards. Do NOT view the "Without Sanctuary" exhibit on lynching unless you are prepared to see some very gruesome and disturbing images. Court TV's Crime Library says, "Lynchings are, in effect, the most extensive series of unsolved murders in American history." Mark Gado's multi-part article for Court TV, "Lynching in America," is a good illustrated overview of this tragic subject.
- "Horatio Alger was the greatest writer in the world," says the young Maya in Chapter 11. You might not be familiar with Horatio Alger, who wrote more than 120 books, mainly aimed at young boys, in the late 1800's. His books did an amazing job of planting the idea into the American consciousness that anyone from any background, no matter how poor, could work his way upward in society through hard work and honesty. This idea, reading Caged Bird, seems rather ironic. A short biography of Alger can be found at Knowledge Rush.Com. Nine of his books can be read online at Self Knowledge.Com.
- In Chapter 17, it seems that the actress Kay Francis looks like Maya and Bailey's mother. Kay Francis, although basically forgotten today, was one of the most famous and most highly paid actresses of the 1930's. You can find a short biography of her, with a photo, here at the Wesleyan University Cinema Archives.
- Chapter 19 is devoted to gathering around the radio listening to a boxing match featuring Joe Louis, the "Brown Bomber," a hero to the African-American community during the 1930's and 1940's. [Maya Angelou remembers Louis beating Primo Carnera in the book, a famous 1935 match; actually, Joe Louis did not become the heavyweight champion of the world until he defeated James J. Braddock in 1937.] Joe Louis was a tremendous athlete who earned more than 5 million dollars during his career...yet ended his fighting days without a cent to call his own. He defended his title successfully more times than any other heavyweight boxer in history. The official Joe Louis web site has a biography and pictures. An excellent article by Larry Schwartz of ESPN is called "'Brown Bomber' Was a Hero to All'".
- Chapter 23 of the book is included in your textbook under the title "Graduation". These Internet links related to the song "Lift Ev'ry Voice and Sing" are also found on your "Readings" page:
- "The year was 1900 and Johnson was a school principal in his hometown of Jacksonville, Fla. He was asked to speak at an Abraham Lincoln birthday celebration, but instead of speaking he decided to write a poem. With time running short, plans changed again and James asked his brother, music teacher J. Rosamond Johnson, to help him write a song..." Thus was born the Negro National Anthem, "Lift Every Voice and Sing". Click, and you can read a little profile of the author, and a short history of the song from National Public Radio in the United States. Included are four different audio versions, in RealPlayer format. I recommend the traditional version from the Choral Arts Society, and to better hear the words, the solo modern version from Kelli Williams. (At the bottom of the page is a link to the words to the song, so you can read along.)
- If you don't have RealPlayer on your computer, you can also listen to another recording of the Negro National Anthem, "Lift Ev'ry Voice and Sing," in a female choir version to be heard at the excellent University of Virginia Library exhibit of that name. The song can be played from this site in both MP3 and QuickTime formats.
- Chapter 27 mentions the mysterious disappearance of the Japanese (or "Nisei") from San Francisco neighborhoods, which were then taken over by "Negro newcomers". This is because of one of the most shameful official episodes in American history, the rounding up of Japanese-Americans on the west coast of the United States due to racist fears after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, which brought America into war in the Pacific. The Camp Harmony Exhibit, from the University of Washington, explains: "In the spring of 1942, just months after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, more than 100,000 residents of Japanese ancestry were forcefully evicted by the army from their homes in Washington, Oregon, California, Arizona and Alaska, and sent to nearby temporary assembly centers. From there they were sent by trains to American-style concentration camps at remote inland sites where many people spent the remainder of the war." Later, many returned to find their property, and jobs, taken by others. As Maya Angelou says, "No member of my family and none of the family friends ever mentioned the absent Japanese. It was as if they had never owned or lived in the houses we inhabited."
- Bailey, toward the end of the book, is wearing a "zoot suit". The zoot suit was a popular fashion for young African-Americans, adopted on the West Coast by Mexican-Americans, during the 1940's. It's a suit with a long jacket, wide lapels, and baggy pants. Eventually, it became a matter of pride and racial identity that lent its name to a time of violent, racially motivated riots in Los Angeles in 1943. See some zoot suits, and learn about the riots, at the Zoot Suit Riots page, from US Public Broadcasting's American Experience series. (Having a Flash Player on your computer will help view this site's features.)
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Sympathy
I know what the caged bird feels, alas!
When the sun is bright on the upland slopes;
When the wind stirs soft through the springing grass,
And the river flows like a stream of glass;
When the first bird sings and the first bud opes,
And the faint perfume from its chalice steals--
I know what the caged bird feels!
I know why the caged bird beats his wing
Till its blood is red on the cruel bars;
For he must fly back to his perch and cling
When he fain would be on the bough a-swing;
And a pain still throbs in the old, old scars
And they pulse again with a keener sting--
I know why he beats his wing!
I know why the caged bird sings, ah me,
When his wing is bruised and his bosom sore,--
When he beats his bars and he would be free;
It is not a carol of joy or glee,
But a prayer that he sends from his heart's deep core,
But a plea, that upward to Heaven he flings--
I know why the caged bird sings!