I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
Maya Angelou titled her autobiography, "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" (1969), from a line in Dunbar's poem "Sympathy", at the suggestion of jazz musician and activist Abbey Lincoln. Angelou said that Dunbar's works had inspired her "writing ambition." She returns to his symbol of a caged bird as a chained slave in much of her writings.