This episode contains mentions of suicide and sexual violence.

Welcome to Significant Others, a podcast that takes a look at the less familiar side of history.

I'm Liza Powell O'Brien, and in this episode, we focus on a couple who are not technically related,

but became family anyway. Neither of them toiled in obscurity nor did one depend more on the other

for his or her success, but they understood each other in a way few others could, and that connection

not only changed the course of at least one of their careers, it was integral to their survival.

This time on Significant Others, meet James Baldwin and Maya Angelou.

A note on the voices. Often on this podcast, we're talking about folks whose voices were never

recorded or at least aren't super familiar to our ears, but Maya Angelou's voice is not only

quite distinctive, it's very well known. Rather than trying to imitate it, we simply brought in a

wonderful actor to bring Miss Angelou's words to life. The life of the artist is not an easy one.

Nor, historically speaking, is the life of a black American. To be both of these things at once

requires talent, support, and courage, because artists have to tell the truth, and the truth

can be dangerous. No one knew this better than Maya Angelou and her friend, James Baldwin.

Angelou famously stopped speaking as a child because she feared her words had the power to kill.

Baldwin had a breakdown when he realized his words couldn't keep anyone from being killed.

When they met in the early 1950s, they were two Americans living in Paris.

Having, to various degrees, fled the country that both gave birth to and oppressed them.

Baldwin was already a serious writer with a reputation as an intellectual, but Angelou was on an

adventure, halfway between the events of her childhood, and the moment at which she would sit down

to capture them. In her best-selling autobiography, I know why the Caged Bird sings.

That book made her a star and launched a genre, and had it not been for her friendship with James

...