The global outpouring of respect and love in response to Maya Angelou’s passing earlier this year was a reminder of the deep impact she made in many fields of human endeavor. Angelou was a poet, writer, performer, producer, director, civil rights activist, trailblazer, and leader. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings is a lyrical but unflinching memoir of Angelou’s years as a child and young woman in the Jim Crow South. In her review that appeared when the book was published in 1970, Ward Just of The Washington Post wrote, “There isn’t any easy, which is to say false line in the book. The distance, which is everything, is as true as a plumb line. She is outside and inside at the same time, looking at all of it with double vision.”