A Quilted Life

Catherine Meeks shares the wisdom she garnered over the journey of her life, from her father’s sharecropping fields to the academy and beyond.

Today, 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.

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, Dreams, and Other Helpers

11. Scraps of Love