“I somehow knew I had something to do in this world, and so I let him go,” Angelou said. “You must forgive. It’s for your own sake — to rid yourself of that weight.”

But Angelou writes in the book that she almost chose a path of revenge rather than forgiveness.

“My mother gave me a gun and said, ‘go blow him away. I promise you, you will not do a day,’" Angelou recalled. “I called the man, and he walked out on the street, and I walked out of the place I was in holding this gun, and he said ‘please don't shoot me, please don't shoot me, please, please don't hurt me. I'm sorry.’”

Instead of shooting him, Angelou made the decision to let him go.

“I said, 'You disgust me, go away, go away,'” Angelou said. “And, I have not really, I’m not carrying him another moment.”