Returning to the themes of Chapters 1 and 6, Angelou cross-examines her own attitudes toward Southern black behavior, particularly the penchant for religiosity. Puzzled by the willingness of bone-weary field hands to settle for leftover food so that they will have time to attend late night revival meetings, she attributes their choice to masochism and notes, ". . . not only was it our fate to live the poorest, roughest life but that we liked it like that." Her portrait of the "transitory setting" of tent evangelism is a faithful rendering of a Southern tradition: the impermanence of folding chairs, two by fours holding up makeshift strings of lights, and canvas walls undulating with the breeze.
Angelou, ever watchful for a bit of tongue-in-cheek humor, milks the scene for its undercurrent of pubescent coming-of-age rites and small-town snobbery, where the high-toned denizens of Mount Zion Baptist Church contrast with the more cerebral African Methodist Episcopal and their counterparts in the African Methodist Episcopal Zion, and the proletarian Christian Methodist Episcopal church. On the outskirts of Christian respectability lurk the fervid Holy Rollers, who spare no exertions as they "make a joyful noise." She swiftly segues into the soulful give-and-take of minister with congregation, the singing of a dolorous hymn, scripture readings, and a lengthy harangue encouraging charity. To Stamps' poorest, whom Angelou dubs "society's pariahs" and "America's historic bowers and scrapers," the minister's welcome prophecy indicates that uncharitable whites will "get their comeuppance," a sweet revenge for a protracted history of injustice. The catharsis wrought by spiritual surrender spreads like contagion, concluding in a reception for repentent sinners and a maudlin coda of mothers crooning a reminder that they have limited time to see their children safely locked into the Christian fold. Smug and self-righteous in their salvation, the elect walk home amid bluesy tunes from a local roadhouse, which provides a cheery alternative to tent revival escapism.
In Chapter 19, still probing the theme of deliverance, Angelou shifts the setting from the cool night air to the packed intensity of bodies crouched over the store radio to hear a broadcast of a crucial prize fight. Local blacks, identifying so intensely with Joe Louis that they become one with him through ups and downs of the bout, interpret his trials in the same category with lynchings, beatings, and pursuit by hounds. The scene not only depicts the culture of the radio era, but also explains and justifies African-American hero worship of black athletes.
