I recently finished reading the collected autobiographies of Maya Angelou, starting with the famous
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, which she published in 1969 and followed with five other volumes. I had read most of them in my 20's but they seem like different books to me now.
Ms. Angelou has led an extraordinary life, growing up in rural, segregated Arkansas, coming of age in San Francisco and becoming a night club singer, touring Europe as a dancer in Porgy and Bess, living in Watts, Harlem and Africa. She worked for both Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr. Her books are wonderfully readable, moving, frank and funny. She's lived through the entire arc of the civil rights movement to date and her thoughtful writing makes her experiences as a black person accessible to everyone.
I highly recommend The Collected Autobiographies of Maya Angelou.