"And still like air, I'll rise"...Long before the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements brought sexual assault into the conversation, Maya Angelou wrote in her first book, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969), about her own experience with sexual trauma, and how her mother’s boyfriend raped her when she was a child. After she testified against him in his trial, he was convicted and imprisoned, and after his release he was beaten to death, a series of events that led her to stop talking for a period. Angelou silenced her voice because she thought her voice was so powerful that it could kill people. Far from the truth. Angelou’s voice was so powerful that it could make people feel alive, feel heard, feel peace.