Hannah's story: hope despite adversity

"There may not be any visible sign of a chang in your individual situation, whatever your private hell is," Wright told his congregation. "But that's just the horizontal level. Keep the vertical level intact, like Hannah. You may, like the African slaves, be able to sing, 'Over my head I hear music in the air. There must be a God somewhere.'" Lean, elegant, powerful, and precise, Wright's sermon eloquently demonstrated that few philosophical threads weave so sturdily through black public rhetoric as radical optimism.