Essay: "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings." Maya Angelou. 1970.

10-second review: Growing up in Stamps, Ark., the author as a young girl suffers both indignities herself and the indignity of watching her relatives threatened or taunted by whites. Her mother always sang hymns to help her endure existence and to dream of relief from that existence in God. That's why the "caged bird" sings.

Comment: An unforgettable, powerful expression of the African-Americans’ existence in a white world through the eyes of a young girl. RayS.

Best American Essays of the Century. Editors: Oates and Atwan. Boston, New York: Houghton Mifflin Company. 2000.