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.

                Acrossthe United States, we are witnessing a backlash against DEI (Diversity, Equity,and Inclusion), with some states such as Florida essentially outlawing DEItrainings and programs in schools, universities, and even businesses.Apparently, DEI makes white people feel bad about themselves. I’m white, I’mrequired by my denomination to take anti-racism training, and I don’t findthese trainings to be a problem. Understanding the challenges faced by personswho have historically been marginalized, whether due to race, ethnicity,gender, or sexual orientation, should, one would think, help level the playingfield. We can attempt to “whitewash” history, and assume that from day oneeveryone has had an equal share in the benefits of American society, but thatwould be untrue. So, it’s important that we hear the stories of those who havefaced challenges due to who they are. Some have overcome these challenges, dueto great determination and often with great suffering so that others might havethe opportunities denied to those who went before them.

                CatherineMeeks offers us a look at her own life story that starts with growing up thedaughter of a sharecropper who couldn’t read or write and a mother who servedas a teacher, even as she struggled to achieve a degree. These two parents didtheir best to help their daughter overcome her origins. She achieved much inlife, but she had to overcome many obstacles put in her way by a white majoritysociety. In the course of writing A Quilted Life, Meeks shares thewisdom she garnered over the journey of her life, from her father’ssharecropping fields to the academy and beyond. 

Today, Meeks is retired from herfinal life calling as executive director of the Absalom Jones Center for RacialHealing, an organization she helped found within the Episcopal Church. Over theyears Meeks served as a social worker, academic administrator, and professor.She served on the faculty of both Mercer University and Wesleyan College, bothin Georgia. In the latter of the two positions, she held the Clara Carter AcreeDistinguished Professor of Socio-Cultural Studies. While at Mercer she helped createand lead the African American studies program. She prepared for these positionsby earning degrees from Pepperdine University, Atlanta University, and EmoryUniversity, where she earned a Ph.D.

Although Meeks retired from adistinguished academic career before leading a center for racial healing, inthis memoir, she helps us understand that being a Black woman in America can bedifficult. She overcame many of the obstacles, but it took a toll on her. Bytelling her story, she seeks to enlighten readers, whether those who have nothad to deal with these obstacles, such that we might better understand thechallenges, as well as those who might find encouragement as they face the challengesof our day. She does this from the perspective of being a national leader inthe cause of racial healing. As such she has become an empowered voice forchange.

The title of Meeks’ book is takenfrom her mother’s practice of quilting. She writes that her mother kept a ragsack handy. This sack contained pieces of cloth taken from old clothes, butwhich were sown together to form quilts. While people might think that theseseemingly worn-out pieces of cloth were worthless, such is not the case. Whensewn together to form a quilt they were transformed, “just as all our inner andouter experiences transform us” (p. xi). This image of the quilt made from ragsserves as how Meeks holds the various pieces of her own story together. Shewrites:

My journey resembles quilt-makingin that it comprises many experiences that the world would see asraggy—irredeemable or useless. I have suffered from rheumatoid arthritis andhave been exhausted by trying to build a career in racist institutions. I haveraised two Black young men, on my own, in a country that threatens the livesand safety of Black men. Despite the hardship, each of these experiences hasallowed me new opportunities to listen for the sound of the genuine in myselfand in the world around me. The rags became more than mere rags. They arethreads of love that were waiting to be put into conversation with one another(p. Xii).  

Meeks grew up in Arkansas at a timewhen the state was still firmly in the grip of Jim Crow. Her father farmed aplot of land, something he was quite good at, but he could never improve hislot in life because of the way sharecropping worked. She writes that as anadult she realized that sharecropping is nothing more than glorified slavery. Thelandlord benefited at the expense of the farmer. Her mother was a teacher insegregated schools that paid poorly, but she persevered and eventually earned adegree. All along the way, Meeks reveals the reality of systemic racism.  

Over a lifetime, Meeks faced therealities of systemic racism, which proclaimed White superiority and Blackinferiority. Thus, she had to overcome her own origins, includingless-than-stellar schools. But she loved reading and did well in school.Eventually, she escaped the segregated South and headed west to Los Angeleswhere she pursued her education at Compton College and Pepperdine University(then still in Los Angeles).  While inLos Angeles she was a student at Pepperdine at the time when a Black teenagerwas killed by a white campus security guard even though the young man hadpermission to be on campus playing basketball. This event, which included theuniversity administration of this Church of Christ-related university seekingto sweep it under the rug, helped awaken Meeks’ prophetic voice. She joinedwith other students in holding the university accountable. She also joined alocal women’s group gave her hope that racial reconciliation waspossible. 

To the surprise of her family,Meeks left Los Angeles and returned to the South, where she would eventuallyearn her graduate degrees and enter the academic world. She thought she wasgoing to the “New South,” but discovered that Macon, Georgia was some fiftyyears behind Atlanta when it came to opening up to African Americans.Nonetheless, she made a life for herself in Macon, ultimately teaching at twouniversities located there. While at Mercer she helped create the AfricanAmerican Studies program and led a community task force on violence, being onloan from her university. While leading a group of Mercer University studentson a trip to West Africa, a trip that was transformative for her as a Blackwoman, she ended up meeting the man who would become her husband and the fatherof her son. Unfortunately, her years-long battle with rheumatoid arthritissevered their relationship, leaving her a single mother of both his son from aprevious marriage and their son. Meanwhile, she worked tirelessly at MercerUniversity to expand the African American studies program, doing so whileearning her MSW and PhD degrees. 

All along the journey, as we walkwith Meeks, she threads her life story with the story of her faith journey. Shewas born into a nominally Baptist family, became part of the Churches ofChrist, and then eventually joining the Episcopal Church. While faith isn’tnecessarily always at the forefront of the story, it is the thread that holdsthings together, even if the church itself is not always as supportive of herjourney. She concludes the story of her life journey by returning to the imageof 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 woveninto a fabric that represents our journey. Each individual piece might not bebeautiful or have a clear purpose. But together they become a unified whole,both useful and beautiful” (p. 189). Thus, Meeks shares her journey that tookher from a sharecropper’s shack to the heights of academic success. It was adifficult 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 sheendured 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 thanothers.

Readers will leave the pagesof A Quilted Life enriched by Meeks’ unique perspective and insightas to the realities of systemic racism. As such it should serve as a strongresponse to those who seek to dismantle anti-racism and DEI efforts that peoplesuch as Catherine Meeks have labored to create. As this is a memoir, it is thedetails that are truly enlightening. She closes the book with these words: “Ithank 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 andcommitted her life to making a difference in a world still bound by racism.