In Maya Angelou's autobiographical novel, "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings",Maya talked about her refined brother Bailey, discovers all of the splendors and agonies of growing up in a prejudiced, early twentieth century America.That is why she said:"I carried the same shield that I had used in Stamps: 'I didn't come to stay'.Rotating between the slow country life of Stamps, Arkansas and the fast-pace societies in St. Louis, Missouri and San Francisco, California taught Maya several random aspects of life while showing her segregated America from coast to coast.

Her grandmother raised her grandchildren with the strict Southern principles such as, "wash your feet before you go to bed; always pray to the savior and you shall be forgiven; chores and school come before play; and help those in need and you shall be helped yourself." Bearing those basic principles, Maya and Bailey grew older and wiser in Stamps, each year watching the Negro cotton-pickers come and go with the burdens and homage comparable to no white person in the county.

Maya was frightened by the idea of big cities and strange people. In St. Louis, where she was presented an entirely different lifestyle, Maya experienced harrowing moments that caused her yearning for the quiet safety of Stamps. Her "Mother Dear's" boyfriend, Mr. Freeman, sexually abused her twice, and when she testified in court against him, the "important connections" her mother had to the gangsters in St. Louis beat Mr. Freeman to death to disburden the shame from the family. In court, Maya lied, saying that he only touched her once, and the guilt of lying to her closest friend, her brother Bailey, cause Maya to mute herself. Exasperated by a gloomy and morbid girl, Maya and Bailey were shipped back to Momma in Stamps, a great relief for Maya, but a horribly upsetting act for her brother. At home again, Maya concentrated on her schoolwork and her duties to Momma's store, the only Negro owned store in Stamps, until after her graduation from eighth grade, when she and Bailey were again sent away, this time to California. They stayed together with Mother Dear, both attending a non-segregated high school, until Bailey, being a sixteen-year-old independent man, decided to move into his own apartment.

Her desire to work on the street cars in San Francisco lead her to fight against the "common forces of nature: white illogical hate and Black lack of power," and soon she was employed. Now questioning her sexuality after reading a book about lesbians and enjoying watching a female friend take off her shirt, she asked a fellow classmate if he wanted to have sexual intercourse with her to ensure herself that she did in fact enjoy men. After they made love, and still uncertain of her sexual preference, she found herself pregnant three weeks later at the age of sixteen. Maya decided to wait until after her high school graduation to tell her mother, and three weeks after that she gave birth to a baby boy whom she was afraid to even touch because of her known clumsiness.

In California, Maya experienced an entirely different perspective on life, where gamblers, hustlers, prostitutes, and gangsters all earned respectable titles and respect. Maya once heard the stories from the best con-artists in the country who cheated malicious, bigoted white men out of everything they owned. In the evenings after her school work was finished, and she never had any chores to do like in Stamps, her mother would take her out dancing and teach her to jitterbug in smoke and whiskey filled dance clubs. In Stamps, this wild way of life would be considered immoral to all religious and simple folk like Momma.

"I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" by Maya Angelou gives the perspective of growing up from a southern Negro girl in three radically different towns: Stamps, St. Louis, and San Francisco. Maya's protective and unadorned world in Stamps helped her hold sacred and moral family values that were then mostly contrasted when she was whisked away to Missouri and California. Living with her maternal mother gave Maya a glimpse at the future world, and helped her to control her "tender heart" and emotions, however Maya seemed always happiest in Stamps with her grandmother. Maya discovered why the caged bird sings when she herself was protected in the enclosure of the simple, hard-life town in which she was reared.