Wikipedia:Today's featured article/January 17, 2016

Gather Together in My Name (1974) is a memoir by African-American writer and poet Maya Angelou, the second of her seven autobiographies. The narrative follows Rita (Angelou) from age 17 to 19 as she becomes closer to her mother and tries to provide for her young son, but ultimately descends into a life of crime and misery. It expands on many of the themes from I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, including motherhood and family, race and racism, identity, and education and literacy. Like many of Angelou's autobiographies, Gather Together describes her ongoing self-education. It was not as critically acclaimed as her first autobiography but is considered better written, and it received mostly positive reviews. The book's title comes from the Bible, Matthew 18:19–20, and is meant to evoke loving relationships, in which adults can be honest with their children about their past. Consisting of a series of episodes loosely tied together by theme and content, the book intentionally parallels the chaos of adolescence, but some critics found this structure unsatisfactory.