At 16, Maya Angelou became San Francisco’s first black female streetcar conductor. Her first book, I know Why theCaged Bird Sings, tells us her early life. Its unsparing account of black life in the South during the Depression and ofher sexual abuse is not easy reading. But her tough, funny, lyrical voice transforms her story into a hymn of endurancethat influenced later memoirists. Her own obituary sums up her life: “Love is that condition which encourages us tobuild bridges and to trust them and cross them in attempts to reach other human beings.”