In 1964, Muhammad Ali said of his decision to join the Nation of Islam: "I know where I'm going and I know the truth and I don't have to be what you want me to be. I'm free to be what I want to be." This sentiment, the brash assertion of individual freedom, informs and empowers each of the four personalities profiled in this book. Author Randal Maurice Jelks shows that to understand the black American experience beyond the larger narratives of enslavement, Emancipation, and Black Lives Matter, we need to hear the individual stories. Drawing on his own experiences growing up as a religious African American, he shows that the inner history of black lives in the twentieth century is a story worth telling. This book explores the stories of four African American figures and their religious journeys through their autobiographical writings, interviews, speeches, letters, and memorable performances. Ethel Waters, Mary Lou Williams, Eldridge Cleaver, and Muhammad Ali all shared their faiths publicly. Each of these four figures used religion to reconcile deep personal struggles, voice their concerns for human dignity, and reinvent their public image. For them liberation was not simply defined by material or legal wellbeing, but by a spiritual search for community and personal wholeness.
In 1964, Muhammad Ali said of his decision to join the Nation of Islam: "I know where I'm going and I know the truth and I don't have to be what you want me to be. I'm free to be what I want to be." This sentiment, the brash assertion of individual freedom, informs and empowers each of the four personalities profiled in this book. Author Randal Maurice Jelks shows that to understand the black American experience beyond the larger narratives of enslavement, Emancipation, and Black Lives Matter, we need to hear the individual stories. Drawing on his own experiences growing up as a religious African American, he shows that the inner history of black lives in the twentieth century is a story worth telling. This book explores the stories of four African American figures and their religious journeys through their autobiographical writings, interviews, speeches, letters, and memorable performances. Ethel Waters, Mary Lou Williams, Eldridge Cleaver, and Muhammad Ali all shared their faiths publicly. Each of these four figures used religion to reconcile deep personal struggles, voice their concerns for human dignity, and reinvent their public image. For them liberation was not simply defined by material or legal wellbeing, but by a spiritual search for community and personal wholeness.
Acknowledgements Introduction. “We Have Been Believers”: Towards an Inner History of African Americans 1. I Sing Because I am Free: Ethel Waters 2. "Jazz is her Religion": Mary Lou Williams 3. "I am Free to be What I Want to Be": Muhammad Ali 4. A Religious Conversion, More or Less: Eldridge Cleaver Conclusion: We Have Been Believers in a New Jerusalem Notes Select Bibliography Index
This book explores the personal and public religious dimensions of four prominent African Americans of the twentieth century: Ethel Waters, Mary Lou Williams, Eldridge Cleaver, and Muhammad Ali.
Randal Maurice Jelks is Professor of American Studies and African and African American Studies at the University of Kansas, USA. His previous books are both award-winning: African Americans in the Furniture City: The Struggle for Civil Rights Struggle in Grand Rapids (2006) and Benjamin Elijah Mays, Schoolmaster of the Movement: A Biography (2012).
[Faith and Struggle in the Lives of Four African Americans] offers
a fascinating look into the religious lives of four individuals,
and Jelks also weaves his own religious narrative in and out of the
stories he tells.
*Anxious Bench*
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