Dr. Maya Angelou grew up in the 50’s were the civil rights movement began So while in Ghana she met Malcolm X and started the organization of african american unity but when he died MLK Jr asked her to serve as Northern Coordinator for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. She began writing poems such as still I rise, Phenomenal Woman, I know why the caged birds sings, and touched by an angel to encourage african americans to fight for their freedom.


The civil rights movement influenced the author in writing because all the poems are about standing up for your rights and everyone being equal and the reason there was a civil rights movement was because african americans weren’t being treated equal.


This relates to our world because even though today slaves don’t really exist in the United States people still face discrimination everyday and alot of people still don’t get treated like everyone else even though everyone is supposed to have the same amount of freedom.

Most of the time African Americans were too scared to stand up for their rights because they were afraid of being beaten, or thrown in jail so when Maya wrote these poems it inspired them to to stand up for their rights and without the poems many people would not of stood up for their rights and African Americans and other races would have been treated bad for even longer.