I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings | Historical Context

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings Historical Context

Conflicts over Civil Rights

Although the action in I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings takes place in the early 1930s through the late 1940s, just after World War II had finally ended, the book was published in 1970, at a time of civil unrest and protest in the nation's black communities. The civil rights movement had splintered with the assassination of its chief architect, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., in April 1968, and protest riots followed. African Americans wavered between following the pacifism that had characterized his leadership and a more outspoken form of protest that had arisen during the last years of King's life. For a time, the latter won out, driven by a climbing black population in many of the nation's major cities. Fueled by outrage over the prejudice, poverty, crime, and unemployment that kept black Americans living in the inner cities-in areas no whites would live-major race riots broke out...
(read more)