Summary

Humanity has long desired to understand the “eternal spirit” (198). Many of life’s questions are strongly linked to faith. Everybody has faith, Owens argues, and it has been “at the heart of the black American story” (199). Owens cites the story behind the hymn “Amazing Grace”: “a former slaver writes what will become a song that gives the enslaved … the strength to keep going. Faith” (200). She reflects on her wedding day where the same hymn was sung, realizing that among her guests of many different races, “I was the living embodiment of all that my ancestors had sung for” (201).

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is a great example of the importance of faith in the Black community. When Owens asks her grandfather why he and her grandmother were also such exemplars of strong faith but their children had all been through divorces and were...