be added murmurs of appreciation. That’s Sister Jordan’s boy!
That’s Brother Hamilton’s boy!

Based on my Easter Sunday

performances, I competed in several citywide declamation
contests, representing St. Paul, where I often placed first.

I intuitively understood that speaking well was highly val-

ued. The very roots of the African Methodist Episcopal
(AME) Church and other black denominations sprang from
blacks’ determination to be able to speak freely, passionately,
and persuasively. Blacks were not allowed to do that in most
of American society. Our voices were largely ignored when
they weren’t completely stifled. But not in the black church.
There, you didn’t have to have formal training or beg permis-
sion to speak. It was one of the few places where black people
could show their intelligence and demonstrate their elo-
quence, where they could not only discuss religion but relate
the lessons of scripture to the world around them. And often
those discussions focused on the rights black Americans were
entitled to but were being denied.

I grew up in Georgia in an era when the lives of black Amer-

icans were shadowed by limitation. The struggle to destroy
those limitations and restore civil rights was the central fact of
our lives. I understood this at an early age because many of the
leading figures in the community—teachers, preachers,
lawyers, doctors, ordinary working people—were involved in
civil rights work in some way. It often was the subject most
passionately discussed at the dinner table and at school, where
I learned about Negro History Week in the first grade, and at

INTRODUCTION

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