A Quilted Life: Reflections of a Sharecropper's Daughter (Catherine Meeks) - A Review
A QUILTED LIFE: Reflections of a Sharecropper’s Daughter. By Catherine Meeks. Foreword by Michelle Miller. Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2024. XVII + 205 pages.
Across
the United States, we are witnessing a backlash against DEI (Diversity, Equity,
and Inclusion), with some states such as Florida essentially outlawing DEI
trainings and programs in schools, universities, and even businesses.
Apparently, DEI makes white people feel bad about themselves. I’m white, I’m
required by my denomination to take anti-racism training, and I don’t find
these trainings to be a problem. Understanding the challenges faced by persons
who have historically been marginalized, whether due to race, ethnicity,
gender, or sexual orientation, should, one would think, help level the playing
field. We can attempt to “whitewash” history, and assume that from day one
everyone has had an equal share in the benefits of American society, but that
would be untrue. So, it’s important that we hear the stories of those who have
faced challenges due to who they are. Some have overcome these challenges, due
to great determination and often with great suffering so that others might have
the opportunities denied to those who went before them.
Catherine
Meeks offers us a look at her own life story that starts with growing up the
daughter of a sharecropper who couldn’t read or write and a mother who served
as a teacher, even as she struggled to achieve a degree. These two parents did
their best to help their daughter overcome her origins. She achieved much in
life, but she had to overcome many obstacles put in her way by a white majority
society. In the course of writing A Quilted Life, Meeks shares the
wisdom she garnered over the journey of her life, from her father’s
sharecropping fields to the academy and beyond.
Today, Meeks is retired from her
final life calling as executive director of the Absalom Jones Center for Racial
Healing, an organization she helped found within the Episcopal Church. Over the
years Meeks served as a social worker, academic administrator, and professor.
She served on the faculty of both Mercer University and Wesleyan College, both
in Georgia. In the latter of the two positions, she held the Clara Carter Acree
Distinguished Professor of Socio-Cultural Studies. While at Mercer she helped create
and lead the African American studies program. She prepared for these positions
by earning degrees from Pepperdine University, Atlanta University, and Emory
University, where she earned a Ph.D.
Although Meeks retired from a
distinguished academic career before leading a center for racial healing, in
this memoir, she helps us understand that being a Black woman in America can be
difficult. She overcame many of the obstacles, but it took a toll on her. By
telling her story, she seeks to enlighten readers, whether those who have not
had to deal with these obstacles, such that we might better understand the
challenges, as well as those who might find encouragement as they face the challenges
of our day. She does this from the perspective of being a national leader in
the cause of racial healing. As such she has become an empowered voice for
change.
The title of Meeks’ book is taken
from her mother’s practice of quilting. She writes that her mother kept a rag
sack handy. This sack contained pieces of cloth taken from old clothes, but
which were sown together to form quilts. While people might think that these
seemingly worn-out pieces of cloth were worthless, such is not the case. When
sewn together to form a quilt they were transformed, “just as all our inner and
outer experiences transform us” (p. xi). This image of the quilt made from rags
serves as how Meeks holds the various pieces of her own story together. She
writes:
My journey resembles quilt-making in that it comprises many experiences that the world would see as raggy—irredeemable or useless. I have suffered from rheumatoid arthritis and have been exhausted by trying to build a career in racist institutions. I have raised two Black young men, on my own, in a country that threatens the lives and safety of Black men. Despite the hardship, each of these experiences has allowed me new opportunities to listen for the sound of the genuine in myself and in the world around me. The rags became more than mere rags. They are threads of love that were waiting to be put into conversation with one another (p. Xii).
Meeks grew up in Arkansas at a time
when the state was still firmly in the grip of Jim Crow. Her father farmed a
plot of land, something he was quite good at, but he could never improve his
lot in life because of the way sharecropping worked. She writes that as an
adult she realized that sharecropping is nothing more than glorified slavery. The
landlord benefited at the expense of the farmer. Her mother was a teacher in
segregated schools that paid poorly, but she persevered and eventually earned a
degree. All along the way, Meeks reveals the reality of systemic racism.
Over a lifetime, Meeks faced the
realities of systemic racism, which proclaimed White superiority and Black
inferiority. Thus, she had to overcome her own origins, including
less-than-stellar schools. But she loved reading and did well in school.
Eventually, she escaped the segregated South and headed west to Los Angeles
where she pursued her education at Compton College and Pepperdine University
(then still in Los Angeles). While in
Los Angeles she was a student at Pepperdine at the time when a Black teenager
was killed by a white campus security guard even though the young man had
permission to be on campus playing basketball. This event, which included the
university administration of this Church of Christ-related university seeking
to sweep it under the rug, helped awaken Meeks’ prophetic voice. She joined
with other students in holding the university accountable. She also joined a
local women’s group gave her hope that racial reconciliation was
possible.
To the surprise of her family,
Meeks left Los Angeles and returned to the South, where she would eventually
earn her graduate degrees and enter the academic world. She thought she was
going to the “New South,” but discovered that Macon, Georgia was some fifty
years behind Atlanta when it came to opening up to African Americans.
Nonetheless, she made a life for herself in Macon, ultimately teaching at two
universities located there. While at Mercer she helped create the African
American Studies program and led a community task force on violence, being on
loan from her university. While leading a group of Mercer University students
on a trip to West Africa, a trip that was transformative for her as a Black
woman, she ended up meeting the man who would become her husband and the father
of her son. Unfortunately, her years-long battle with rheumatoid arthritis
severed their relationship, leaving her a single mother of both his son from a
previous marriage and their son. Meanwhile, she worked tirelessly at Mercer
University to expand the African American studies program, doing so while
earning her MSW and PhD degrees.
All along the journey, as we walk with Meeks, she threads her life story with the story of her faith journey. She was born into a nominally Baptist family, became part of the Churches of Christ, and then eventually joining the Episcopal Church. While faith isn’t necessarily always at the forefront of the story, it is the thread that holds things together, even if the church itself is not always as supportive of her journey. She concludes the story of her life journey by returning to the image of the quilt made of rags that were transformed into something beautiful. Thus, she writes of what she calls “scraps of love: We can take all our narratives, encounters, triumphs, failures, hopes, and fears and allow them to be woven into a fabric that represents our journey. Each individual piece might not be beautiful or have a clear purpose. But together they become a unified whole, both useful and beautiful” (p. 189). Thus, Meeks shares her journey that took her from a sharecropper’s shack to the heights of academic success. It was a difficult journey, that was sustained by her faith, her family, and her friends. While she admits she would rather not have gone through all the troubles she endured in life, but they are part of the quilt that is her life story. Together they serve to remind us that some journeys are more difficult than others.
Readers will leave the pages of A Quilted Life enriched by Meeks’ unique perspective and insight as to the realities of systemic racism. As such it should serve as a strong response to those who seek to dismantle anti-racism and DEI efforts that people such as Catherine Meeks have labored to create. As this is a memoir, it is the details that are truly enlightening. She closes the book with these words: “I thank the Creator for this journey. I thank the Creator for empowering me” (p. 205). We can be thankful that empowered by the Creator she persisted and committed her life to making a difference in a world still bound by racism.
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