“ I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings” by Maya Angelou , a person who survived the Great Depression and a multitude of wars but lived in a time when her race and sex was put down and were not treated as equals because their skin was darker than white people. In the poem the caged bird sings because that 's all that the bird can do . The bird cannot fly or walk around freely because it is trapped so it does the only thing that it can do , sing. And the free bird can fly and explore the world freely and has more opportunities than the caged bird. In the movie “The Long Walk Home” the caged bird is Odessa because she is black and black people at that time did not have all the rights that the white people had therefore they are caged. Odessa has