"Here the 'Caged Bird' soars and signs in a voice as rich and funny, passionate and Mellow as any writer I know." -- Shana Alexander

"This is the fourth book (of four? of seven?) in Maya Angelou’s autobiographical series and starts with Billie Holliday as a house guest and goes on to describe her involvement in the Civil Rights Movement and meetings with Martin Luther King and Malcolm X." --baswood, Aug. 27, 2018

"Here the 'Caged Bird' soars and signs in a voice as rich and funny, passionate and Mellow as any writer I know." -- Shana Alexander

"This is the fourth book (of four? of seven?) in Maya Angelou’s autobiographical series and starts with Billie Holliday as a house guest and goes on to describe her involvement in the Civil Rights Movement and meetings with Martin Luther King and Malcolm X." --baswood, Aug. 27, 2018

A more contained (really, the story of her son's teenage years. World events play a supporting role), less event-filled phase of Dr. Angelou's earlier life. She overreaches a few times and yells rather than speaks the significance of a moment. Largely though, this is a remarkable achievement in how much it takes into its arms so effortlessly. It's great fun to read and feels like the events of almost 70 years ago happened yesterday. ( )

> Babelio : https://www.babelio.com/livres/Angelou-Tant-que-je-serai-noire/87636
> Psychologies magazine : https://fr.calameo.com/books/000048378bf6d93a97b95
> BAnQ (Montpetit C., Le devoir, 8 sept. 2008) : https://collections.banq.qc.ca/ark:/52327/2813773
> BAnQ (Petrowski N., La presse, 19 oct. 2008) : https://collections.banq.qc.ca/ark:/52327/2208928

> Amie de Martin Luther King, de Malcolm X et d'autres légendes de la lutte pour les droits civiques aux États-Unis, l'écrivain et poète, qui publie en France une biographie, est une figure charismatique dans son pays...
On rit, on pleure, on se bat pour survivre, avec Maya. Quelle vie, se dit-on. On sort de cette lecture revigoré, prêt à en découdre avec la vie, à ne pas baisser les bras. Ce n'est pas le moindre des cadeaux de Tant que je serai noire.
—(Julia Ficatier - La Croix du 22 octobre 2008)

This is the fourth book in Maya Angelou’s autobiographical series and starts with Billie Holliday as a house guest and goes on to describe her involvement in the Civil Rights Movement and meetings with Martin Luther King and Malcolm X. She organised the Cabaret for Freedom in support of Martin Luther Kings Southern Christian Leadership Conference and acted in Jean Genet’s play The Blacks with Abbey Lincoln, Roscoe Lee Brown, James Earl Jones, Louis Gossett, Godfrey Cambridge, and Cicely Tyson. The final part of the book sees her married to South African Freedom Fighter Vusumzi Make and living in Cairo. An eventful period in her life and she certainly adds plenty of drama to her story.

This period sees her looking at the world from her position within the Black civil rights movement and it is a hostile vision of the white society that controls America. All white’s are ‘Crackers’ never to be trusted and she willingly goes to Africa to escape from the oppression that is part of a black persons lot in 1960’s America. Maya Angelou captures the feelings of those people involved in the struggle as she catapults around in a sphere of now famous people from the movement. Her writing hasn’t lost its edge in this fourth volume and so another four star read. ( )