Jonathan Pulphus (Author of With My People)

Jonathan Pulphus made a comment on Gwendolyn "Unique" Davis’s review of With My People: Life, Justice, and Activism Beyond the University " Ms. Davis, thank you for your review! I appreciate your thoughtful meditations. "
Mar 01, 2026 04:52PM · see review
Jonathan Pulphus and 1 other person liked Gwendolyn "Unique" Davis's review of With My People: Life, Justice, and Activism Beyond the University: "With My People by Jonathan Pulphus is a powerful and meaningful book that explores themes of identity, unity, and resilience. Throughout the story, Pulphus highlights the importance of community and staying connected to your roots, even during diffic" Read more of this review »
Mar 01, 2026 04:52PM · see review
Jonathan Pulphus made a comment on Araya Wells’s review of With My People: Life, Justice, and Activism Beyond the University " Thank you for your review, Araya. I appreciate it. "
Oct 06, 2025 06:53AM · see review
Jonathan Pulphus liked Araya Wells's review of With My People: Life, Justice, and Activism Beyond the University: "Jonathan Pulphus brings immediacy and emotional honesty to With My People by writing from lived experience. As someone present in the key moments of protest, organizing, arrest, and negotiation he gives readers a grounded, real-time view of what stud" Read more of this review »
Oct 06, 2025 06:52AM · see review
Jonathan Pulphus made a comment on Emmanuel Jones’s review of With My People: Life, Justice, and Activism Beyond the University " Thank you for your review! I appreciate your analysis and perspective. "
Aug 24, 2025 07:17PM · see review
Jonathan Pulphus liked Emmanuel Jones's review of With My People: Life, Justice, and Activism Beyond the University: "The reader gets the opportunity to get a deeper understanding of who were those people, what & why were they engaging in the Ferguson protests or riots, whichever you assume. Jonathan’s critique on the governmental & financial systems of the United S" Read more of this review »
Aug 24, 2025 10:41AM · see review
Jonathan Pulphus and 3 other people liked Richard Propes's review of With My People: Life, Justice, and Activism Beyond the University: "As a longtime activist, I'm not hesitant to confess that I have those times when I start to wonder if what I do really makes a difference. It is into this space that we meet Jonathan Pulphus. "With My People: Life, Justice, and Activism Beyond the Un" Read more of this review »
Jul 15, 2025 06:12AM · see review
Jonathan Pulphus made a comment on Richard Propes’s review of With My People: Life, Justice, and Activism Beyond the University " Thank you Richard for this review! I'm glad you enjoyed it! ...more "
Jul 15, 2025 06:11AM · see review
Jonathan Pulphus rated a book it was amazing The Drunk Deliverance: Discovering Purpose in Traumatic Experiences by Christopher M. Pate	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Jonathan Pulphus 17 February 2025 *Spoiler Alert* The Drunk Deliverance: Grounding, Faith, and Testimony Born and based in St. Louis, Missouri, Christopher Pate is a non-fiction author and prevention educator. He is a son, speaker, teacher, and advoc ...more
Feb 17, 2025 12:27PM · 1 like · like · see review

Jonathan Pulphus made a comment on Gwendolyn "Unique" Davis’s review of With My People: Life, Justice, and Activism Beyond the University

" Ms. Davis, thank you for your review! I appreciate your thoughtful meditations. "

Jonathan Pulphus and 1 other person liked Gwendolyn "Unique" Davis's review of With My People: Life, Justice, and Activism Beyond the University:

"With My People by Jonathan Pulphus is a powerful and meaningful book that explores themes of identity, unity, and resilience. Throughout the story, Pulphus highlights the importance of community and staying connected to your roots, even during diffic" Read more of this review »

Jonathan Pulphus made a comment on Araya Wells’s review of With My People: Life, Justice, and Activism Beyond the University

" Thank you for your review, Araya. I appreciate it. "

Jonathan Pulphus liked Araya Wells's review of With My People: Life, Justice, and Activism Beyond the University:

"Jonathan Pulphus brings immediacy and emotional honesty to With My People by writing from lived experience. As someone present in the key moments of protest, organizing, arrest, and negotiation he gives readers a grounded, real-time view of what stud" Read more of this review »

Jonathan Pulphus made a comment on Emmanuel Jones’s review of With My People: Life, Justice, and Activism Beyond the University

" Thank you for your review! I appreciate your analysis and perspective. "

Jonathan Pulphus liked Emmanuel Jones's review of With My People: Life, Justice, and Activism Beyond the University:

"The reader gets the opportunity to get a deeper understanding of who were those people, what & why were they engaging in the Ferguson protests or riots, whichever you assume. Jonathan’s critique on the governmental & financial systems of the United S" Read more of this review »

Jonathan Pulphus and 3 other people liked Richard Propes's review of With My People: Life, Justice, and Activism Beyond the University:

"As a longtime activist, I'm not hesitant to confess that I have those times when I start to wonder if what I do really makes a difference.

It is into this space that we meet Jonathan Pulphus. "With My People: Life, Justice, and Activism Beyond the Un" Read more of this review »

Jonathan Pulphus made a comment on Richard Propes’s review of With My People: Life, Justice, and Activism Beyond the University

" Thank you Richard for this review! I'm glad you enjoyed it! ...more "

Jonathan Pulphus rated a book it was amazing

The Drunk Deliverance by Christopher M. Pate

The Drunk Deliverance: Discovering Purpose in Traumatic Experiences
by Christopher M. Pate

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Jonathan Pulphus
17 February 2025
***Spoiler Alert***

The Drunk Deliverance: Grounding, Faith, and Testimony

Born and based in St. Louis, Missouri, Christopher Pate is a non-fiction author and prevention educator. He is a son, speaker, teacher, and advoc Jonathan Pulphus
17 February 2025
***Spoiler Alert***

The Drunk Deliverance: Grounding, Faith, and Testimony

Born and based in St. Louis, Missouri, Christopher Pate is a non-fiction author and prevention educator. He is a son, speaker, teacher, and advocate. At the age of 23, on Saturday, January 24th, 2009, Pate survived a near death collision following the negligence of a drunk driver. This vehicular baptism by fire leads to his journey toward recovery and reinvention of self while serving as the basis of his debut book. His is a story about the necessity of grounding, power of faith, and the cost of testimony.

The Drunk Deliverance: Discovering Purpose In Traumatic Experiences is a memoir that wrestles with the consequences of drunk driving providing a telescopic lens into the author’s beginnings, aftermath, pilgrimage, and overcoming. The intended audience for this work is intergenerational with a keen focus on men ages 21-24 years old given that they make up the highest demographic at risk for driving under the influence. The purpose of the work is, in lieu of the near fatal collision, to elucidate the beauty of genuine support systems, answer questions only hope can answer, and grapple with turning trauma into triumph.

The memoir is the story of Christopher Pate who aspired to be a schoolteacher at an early age. The author follows Christopher’s excelling and matriculating through his K-12 environment positioning himself for college scholarships landing him at Kentucky State University (KSU). Due to an inability to balance social and academic demands at KSU, he is unable to meet the threshold required to maintain good standing and returns home. Back home, Christopher was working and taking steps toward returning to school to finish his undergraduate degree. One evening, he dropped a friend off at home after hanging out together. After leaving the party, driving at Newstead and Natural Bridge in North St. Louis, Philander McCaleb, who later claimed in court he only had “one beer,” hits Pate’s car causing the ladder to embark on a nightmarish escapade. Pate encounters and survives Barnes-Jewish Hospital, St. Mary’s Hospital, Mount Vernon’s Missouri Rehabilitation Center, MRIs, CAT Scans, a diffuse axonal injury (traumatic brain injury), breathing machines, feeding tubes, wheelchairs, routine pain spasms, loss of independence, and occupational therapists. Medical professionals forecasted that he would not live, upon realizing he would survive it was predicted he’d remain in a vegetative state, and once he overcame that it was predicted that he’d be no more than a greeter at Walmart. People that Pate once considered friends turned their backs on him, he wrestled with deep depression and suicidal ideation, faced the passing of his father, and grappled with bouts of self-doubt. Despite all the pain and suffering, Pate’s support network remains steady, his faith deepens, and he works to defy the odds placed before him. He slowly returns to work, challenges himself to be self-sufficient, and strives to regain his footing. While serving as a waiter at Ruth Chris, he gains a chance to regularly serve Dr. Henry Givens Jr., President of Harris-Stowe State University. After nurturing this relationship, Dr. Givens grants Pate a full ride scholarship which the ladder takes full advantage of. Upon graduating, Chris works at a non-profit and later joins the ranks of the international Mothers Against Drunk Driving non-profit.

The title of this memoir compliments the theme of choice and freedom. Throughout the text, the audience walks alongside Pate’s surviving the suffering associated with the impact of the collision. The physical, mental, and emotional rollercoaster that Pate rides due to a “drunk” driver's choice is provided raw, unapologetically, and illustratively. However, the reader is also drawn into the liberating efforts Pate takes to offset the costs in the form of “deliverance.” As he faces his challenges, he becomes freer of the stigma, self-doubt, and sanctions that chained him to a hospital or home bed. Following a traumatic experience, Pate becomes a new man. The title is an affirmation of this new being.

Across the front title, the words The Drunk Deliverance are most prominent in bold and capital white letters. The subtitle, Discovering Purpose in Traumatic Experience follows in smaller capital orange letters. The chemical reaction potassium dichromate, an orange solution that turns green when alcohol is present, may have been a nod to the decision to utilize orange font in the letters. The cover art reveals a person existing in a dark corridor looking toward a valley with the sun rising symbolizing a new day. Throughout the memoir, Pate makes clear the dark and perilous times that he experienced in his past associated with the drunk driving incident. Like the person leaving that dark long passage and walking toward the sun, Pate transitions from a past of despair, depression, and dispossession toward a reinvention of self that seizes a new purpose, promise, possibilities that come with a new day.

Themes emerge throughout the memoir such as the necessity of grounding, power of faith, and the cost of testimony. First, grounding is a sense of community, family, friends, spiritual guidance, and a healthy environment that is necessary in being a survivor. While Pate lost friends along his way, the presence of his mother Ms. Patsy Walker Pate, Misha, Reverend Douglass, Ms. Katie (his beloved dog), caregivers at the medical institutions, and many others helped rejuvenate and keep him focused. Speaking to the power of his support system, Pate writes “my village continued to support and encourage me despite my attitude and occasional mood swings,” (Pate, pg. 62). Without this grounding, Pate would not have been able to recover at the same pace and extent. Second, faith amid the uncertain helps guide one through the unbelievable. The ability to trust in a larger plan than what was apparent is a consistent thread throughout the text from beginning to end. At the start of the story, it shows when Pate’s mother places her trust in God that her son will survive even when the Barnes-Jewish hospital staff claimed he would not. Throughout the book, faith Chris placed in God when during his darkest moments suffering depression helped him persevere. Faith provided Pate the spiritual fuel and fortitude to face the impossible even when times were the bleakest. Third, testimony as a vehicle for truth telling and encouragement is a regular aspect of literature. There is no testimony without a test and Pate makes unquestionable the throes of trials and tribulations he faced. On one hand, this truth telling is aimed at reminding the audience that due to the price Pate unknowingly paid, he now has a cautionary tale to educate about the perils of drunk driving. On the other hand, the truth Pate shares is a celebration of survivor hood.

To date, the novel The Drunk Deliverance: Discovering Purpose In Traumatic Experiences is the only published literature Christopher Pate has available at Manuscripts Press. Pate is reachable at christophermpate@yahoo.com. The cost of the literature is $20.00 in paperback. It’s available at Barnes & Nobles as well as Amazon. Read it and experience deliverance. ...more

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