One of the Most Banned Books of All Time

In 1998, a Maryland school district removed one of American literature’s most acclaimed works from its curriculum. Parents advocating for the ban argued that the book was both “physically explicit” and “anti-white.” Following protests from other parents and educators, the decision was eventually reversed. However, this was neither the first nor the last attack on Maya Angelou’s “I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings.” Few books have been challenged more frequently than Angelou’s memoir. While book banning decisions typically aren’t made at the state or national level, most of the schools and libraries that have banned Angelou’s book have cited similar reasons. Most commonly, they argue that the memoir’s account of rape and the violence of US racism are inappropriate for young readers. But these concerns miss the point of Angelou’s story, which uses these very themes to explore the dangers of control and silence in the lives of children.

Published in 1969, “I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings” follows the author’s early life growing up poor, Black, and female in the southern US. Central to the story is Angelou’s experience of being sexually assaulted when she was seven and a half years old. Surrounded by adults who consider the subject too taboo to discuss, Angelou concludes that she is at fault. And when she finally identifies her abuser in court, he is killed by vigilantes. Angelou believes her voice is responsible for his death, and for years, she stops speaking altogether. The book chronicles Angelou’s journey to rediscover her voice, all while exploring the trauma and buried shame that emerge from avoiding uncomfortable realities.

The memoir’s narrative voice skillfully blends her childhood confusion with her adult understanding, offering the reader insights Angelou was denied as a child. She links her early experiences of being silenced and shamed to the experience of being poor and Black in segregated America. “The Black female,” she states, “is trapped in the triangular crossfire of masculine prejudice, white illogical hatred, and Black lack of power.” Her autobiography was one of the earliest books to speak openly about child sexual abuse, and particularly groundbreaking in doing so from the perspective of the abused child. For too long, Black writers had been constrained by stereotypes depicting them as hypersexual. Fearing perpetuating these stereotypes, few were willing to write about their sexuality at all. But Angelou refused to be silenced. She openly explored her most private experience, without apology or shame. This spirit of defiance infuses her writing with a sense of resilience that battles the memoir’s often harrowing subject matter.

Recalling how a fellow student defied instructions not to sing the Black National Anthem in the presence of white guests, she states, “The tears that flowed down many faces were not wiped away in shame. We were on top again… We survived.”

Angelou’s memoir was published amid the Civil Rights and Black Power movements when activists were calling for school curricula that reflected the diversity of experiences in the US. Yet, almost as soon as the book appeared in schools, it faced challenges. Campaigns to control curriculum content swept across America during the 1970s and 80s. On the American Library Association’s list of most frequently banned or challenged books, “I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings” remained near the top for years. However, parents, students, and teachers have consistently rallied in support of the memoir. And by 2013, it had become the second most-taught nonfiction text in US high school English classes.

When asked about writing one of the most banned books, Angelou said, “I find that people who want my book banned have never read a passage of my writing but have heard that I write about an assault. They act as if their children are not faced with the same risks. And that is terrible.” She believed that children who are old enough to be the victims of sexual abuse and racism are old enough to learn about these subjects. Because listening and learning are essential to surviving, and the unspeakable is far more dangerous when left unspoken.