 Angelou returns to New York , where she dedicates herself to her writing and renews many of the friendships made there in the past . She also describes her personal and professional relationships with Ruby Dee , Ossie Davis , Beah Richards , and Frank Silvera . Martin Luther King , Jr. asks her to travel around the country promoting the Southern Christian Leadership Conference . She agrees , but " postpones again " , and he is assassinated on her 40th birthday . Again devastated , she isolates herself until invited to a dinner party also attended by her friend James Baldwin and cartoonist Jules Feiffer and his wife Judy . Judy Feiffer , inspired by her tales about Angelou 's childhood , contacts editor Robert Loomis , who challenges Angelou to write her autobiography as literature . She accepts his challenge , and Song ends with Angelou at " the threshold of her literary career " , writing the opening lines to her first autobiography , I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings : 
