Faith and Struggle in the Lives of Four African Americans: Ethel Waters, Mary Lou Williams, Eldridge Cleaver, and Muhammad Ali
Ebook
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. 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 Americans in the 20th century is a story worthy of telling.
This book explores the faith stories of four African Americans: Ethel Waters, Mary Lou Williams, Eldridge Cleaver, and Muhammad Ali. It examines their autobiographical writings, interviews, speeches, letters, and memorable performances to understand how each of these figures used religious faith publicly 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.
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.
Written in an engaging style that balances the personal and scholarly, by an award winning author
Highlights the need to explore individuals' experiences in order to understand the larger questions in society around race and religion
Discusses four well known African Americans, including Muhammad Ali
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
[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.
- Title: Faith and Struggle in the Lives of Four African Americans: Ethel Waters, Mary Lou Williams, Eldridge Cleaver, and Muhammad Ali
- Author: Randal Maurice Jelks
- Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
- Print Publication Date: 2019
- Logos Release Date: 2024
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Ebook
- ISBNs: 9781350074637, 9781350074620, 1350074624, 1350074632
- Resource ID: LLS:9781350074637
- Resource Type: Monograph
- Metadata Last Updated: 2024-04-08T21:28:37Z
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).