A Quilted Life
Reflections of a Sharecropper?s Daughter
Author Catherine Meeks Foreword by Michelle Miller ISBN 9780802882899 Binding Trade Paper Publisher WM B. Eerdmans Publishing Company Publication Date February 13, 2024 Size 140 x 216 mmToday, Catherine Meeks is a national leader of racial healing and an esteemed retired professor of African American studies. But being a Black woman in America can be difficult. Join Meeks as she describes the adventures and adversity she encountered on her path to becoming an empowered voice for change.
Growing up in Arkansas under the terror of Jim Crow, Meeks learned firsthand about injustice and the desperation it causes. But with the support of her family, she moved to LA to study at Pepperdine. When a Black teenager was killed by a campus security guard, Meeks awakened to her prophetic voice, and a local women’s group gave her hope that racial reconciliation was possible.
She later led a group of students to West Africa, where she met her husband. Yet her years-long battle with rheumatoid arthritis severed their relationship, leaving her a single mother. Meanwhile, she worked tirelessly at Mercer University to expand the African American studies program, all while earning her MSW and PhD.
Quilting together these memories—bitter and sweet, traumatic and triumphant—Meeks shares her hard-earned wisdom: Learn how to discern the Creator’s work. Listen to the voice saying “yes” to opportunity. Become a wounded healer. Know when to practice silence and when to speak out. Readers will leave the pages of A Quilted Life enriched by Meeks’s unique perspective and insight.
“Meeks comes across as an eminently relatable elder who has quilted together a truly amazing life.”
“No one who engages Dr. Meeks’s life through her memories would want to live her life. She tells her story with clarity, passion, and truth-telling. Everyone who engages Dr. Meeks’s life through her memories will make her story their own, transforming their lives into solidarity with the oppressed, joining the battle against white supremacy.”
—Eduard Loring, The Open Door Community
“In this deeply empathetic and compelling book, Dr. Catherine Meeks—the doyenne of truth-telling—stitches together the pieces of her life, creating brave space from which to share her experiences and wisdom as healer, teacher, and spiritual leader. We are fortunate to be able to hear her story as she wants to tell it, and to be inspired to tell our own stories with the ‘scraps of love’ from our own lives.”
—Jerlena Griffin-Desta, coauthor of Facing You, Facing Me
“A Quilted Life is the memoir of a remarkable human being called to become a prophetic witness. Dr. Catherine Meeks’s story offers us a look at the fabric of faithfulness and provides careful readers with essential wisdom and courage for their own journey toward justice.”
—David Fleer, independent scholar
“In this remarkable story, Catherine Meeks takes us to the far reaches of our life together—places where most souls would not dare go alone. Her great gift to the reader is her compassionate sense of courage! Put your hand in hers and let her take you there.”
—Reverend Tom Brackett, The Episcopal Church
“Decades before she was ‘Dr. Meeks,’ she was my dearest friend ‘Cathy.’ We met at Pepperdine and came of age together. We talked about boys, family, our future careers. But on the night of March 12, 1969, our world was shattered into pieces and our innocence stripped away. Reading this memoir will provide a true understanding of how my friend went from mild-mannered ‘Cathy’ to the beautiful, iron-willed, and fearless ‘pioneer of racial healing’—Dr. Catherine Meeks. Read with the knowledge that you, too, can evolve.”
—Cookye Rutledge, Young Scholars Academy
“This mesmerizing autobiography is the account of an extraordinary Black woman’s battle to free herself and others from the biases that gave birth to slavery and still haunt us. Written with a candor about herself, her family, and her faith that avoids rationalization and recrimination, this is the story of a quilt whose pieces include the hues of achievement and pain. I cannot recommend it strongly enough.”
—Gregory E. Sterling, Yale Divinity School
“The magnificence of A Quilted Life is its quiet blues rhythm, its obeisance to Black rural, southern culture, its beautifully simple sentence structure, which holds the heart and mind of a mighty Black woman. This is a memoir for the ages, revealing how and why Black people survived. If you read it, your soul will be made glad.”
—Daniel Black, Clark Atlanta University, author of Black on Black
“This is her story, this is her song, and what an amazing journey! A Quilted Life is a candid account of a life shaped by juxtapositions and informed by a faith-filled and fierce determination to find her own voice, see beauty in a racist world, and be well. With the skill of a master artisan, Meeks’s evolving sense of self provides a glimpse of what might be possible when we see ourselves for who we are and exercise courageous faith to navigate life on our terms.”
—Angela D. Sims, Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School
Catherine Meeks recently retired as executive director of the Absalom Jones Center for Racial Healing. She is also the retired Clara Carter Acree Distinguished Professor of Socio-Cultural Studies at Wesleyan College. A sought-after teacher and workshop leader, Dr. Meeks works with people who have been marginalized because of economic status, race, gender, or physical ability as they pursue liberation, justice, and a more abundant life.
Table of Contents
Foreword by Michelle Miller
Preface
1. Awakenings
2. A Bigger World
3. Desperation Burned Down Our House
4. Escape from Arkansas
5. The Wilderness
6. Metamorphosis
7. The Gambia
8. Witness
9. New Frontiers
10. Silence, Journals, and Dreams
11. Scraps of Love