I grew up hearing stories about my great-grandparents. Walter Lee and Dovie Lee were their names. Great-grandaddy was a factory worker, and Big Mama was a domestic, working in the homes of rich White folk. They fled the South to escape Jim Crow, lynching, hatred, and despair. They came up North seeking hope for a better life, freedom from oppression, and jobs that were plentiful when they first arrived. They had a prior probability of faith.
Factories in the North opened their doors to Black workers, offering opportunities, even though working conditions were arduous and sometimes dangerous. Despite my great-grandparents’ optimism, the evidence of a better life arrived slowly, like water seeping through a basement wall.
For my great-grandparents, their prior probability of faith survived the weight of prevailing counter evidence that included lynchings, redlining, employment discrimination, and police violence. God’s grace, by virtue of their faith, intervened in their situation and fortified their faith.
