The Glory Field

“Now he saw their faces, their eyes, the hands that would say so much to him with a touch. He thought of his mother thinking of him, wondering where he was, and his eyes filled with tears.” 

This quote highlights Muhammad’s isolation and fear. He is confused and disoriented. He does not know what has happened to his parents, and doesn’t know if they know what has happened to him.  

“The way between the big house and the quarters, and then from the quarters to the fields, was all she had traveled during her thirteen years.”

This emphasizes the sheltered and isolated life which Lizzy has led up until this point, having only lived on the Live Oaks plantation. 

“Every black person who ain’t dead sooner or later gets them a freedom dream.” 

Grandma Saran is telling Lizzy about Joshua’s freedom dream. Joshua has run away from the Live Oaks plantation and Lizzy wonders where he has gone. Saran explains that eventually, every slave dreams of a life outside of the plantation.

“You got to go on, now. Take our love with you. Take it to Joshua, and to my boy. You take it with you, too, cause we all love you. Now go on.” 

Moses is comforting Lizzy, who is crying, as she is being forced to run away from the plantation under threat of violence from Master Joe Haynes. She has already been whipped by him for giving Lem water while he was tied to a tree.

“Somewhere between the sun’s being high and it moving across the sky and losing its strength, Lizzy decided that from that day, she was going to be on her own […] She was free. It was a scary free, and it was a hungry free and a tired free, but it was free.” 

Despite never having had a freedom dream herself, Lizzy is exhilarated at now finding herself away from Live Oaks. She has had an awakening and knows that she will never go back. From this moment, Lizzy has discovered the power of her strength and resilience. 

“The story went that Moses had led them into the field to pray, but that he was so filled with the joy of being able to look upon the people gathered around him, finally not having to share them with an overseer or a master, that he couldn’t speak. After a long while, he lifted his arms to the heavens and called out, ‘Glory!’” 

The Glory Field is a place of celebration for the Lewis family. The field represents hope and peace and is a major symbol of freedom for the Lewis family.

“That’s not just dirt out there. Somebody in our family has been working that land since we was first brought over here. We’ve been up and down these fields till we know them like we know our own hands. Back in slavery times it was us who sweated over those fields, bled over them, and Lord knows cried over them.”

This quote highlights the importance of the fields to the Lewis family. Their ancestors worked hard in the fields and they symbolize strength of will and hope for equality and freedom.

“Stuck money is what comes in your hand and sticks there for more than two minutes. A black man don’t see no stuck money. What we see is scratch money. The white man give you money in one hand, and then he scratch on his paper to see what you owe him, and then that money go right back to him.” 

Grandpa Moses makes this statement after receiving the thirty-five dollars reward money from Elijah. He and Grandma Saran have never seen that amount of money before. The only money they see is given to them by white men, and is then taken right back from them by white men.

“He felt good, better than he ever remembered feeling. This was what it felt like, being a man, he thought. Working out in the fields with your family and knowing your taxes were paid and having somebody like Grandma Saran fixing your supper. It was as if he was stronger than he had ever been—and taller.” 

Here, Elijah is thinking to himself. Despite his young age, he wants to be man, and to take care of his family. He has just rescued David Turner and passed on the reward money to Grandma Saran to pay the land taxes. He has saved the Glory Field.

“Elijah couldn’t be still […] Not with the way Grandpa Moses and Grandma Saran had looked when he gave them the money. That was the way it was supposed to be, everybody excited and thinking about what they were going to be doing. He reached down and picked up a handful of dirt, saw the way it looked in the light part of his palm, and squeezed it as tightly as he could. It was Lewis land, and it would be Lewis land.” 

Elijah is as determined as Grandma Saran to keep the field in the Lewis family’s possession. He gave all of the thirty-five dollars he earned, for finding David, to Grandma Saran to help pay taxes. Brave and bold, Elijah was determined enough to ask David’s father for the money he was offered, before setting out to find David. 

“The first black man that we can remember in our family came here wearing these. This is where we come from, and what we’ve got to overcome. It’s up to you where you go from here.” 

This quote, which references Bilal’s shackles, states that you have to overcome the way you’re treated. Remember where you came from, it will keep you strong. Live the life you want, and fight for your freedom.  

“It’s about going on. And looking for a better day. And that’s what you got to do. You a Lewis. And you got something in you what’s been passed down from generation to generation, from man to man. We come a long way from them shackles to now, but we still got so long to go […] Just don’t forget you’re a Lewis, and we’re family. I know you’re going to make that mean something.” 

Here, the importance of family is being explained to Elijah by Grandma Saran: the bonds of family are stronger than any other bond. The Lewis ancestors were brought to America in shackles but, despite coming a long way, they still have a long way to go. Now they are free, and they can farm the field that has been worked by their ancestors for many years.

“Daddy’s got to realize that there are city folk and then there’s country folk. I was raised in Chicago and I’m a Chicago girl.” 

Luvenia has received a letter from her father asking her to join the rest of the family at the Glory Field, butLuvenia loves her life in Chicago. This statement from her to Miss Etta highlights her independence and confidence. 

“[…] Luvenia wanted to go to college, to be a teacher, or perhaps even a lawyer, anything but someone else’s expectations of her.” 

Florenz Deets has just told her father that Luvenia is pregnant, so that she can use his car to supposedly take Luvenia to the hospital. Luvenia is upset, as the lie sullies her reputation. Luvenia wants to go to college to fight against other people’s prejudices and expectations. 

“Girl, a black woman losing a job ain’t no big thing! It ain’t the last job you going to lose.” 

Miss Etta Pinckney is older than Luvenia, and more aware of the racism that still exists in 1930. A black woman losing a job isn’t news to her. Miss Etta wants Luvenia to wake up to the challenges she is yet to face.

“I love it and I want to save it and be as proud of it as he is, but I don’t want to live it. Does that make any sense.” 

The Lewis family have dreams. Each of the principal characters has had their own dream. Elijah’s was always to make a success of the Glory Field and support his grandparents. Luvenia, despite loving the land, and her father, has dreams of her own that are separate from the Glory Field. 

“Let’s face it Tommy, integration is here to stay. And it’s about time if you ask me.” 

Leonard Chase is a white man and former basketball star from Johnson City State University. Leonard understands that integration is coming, and he is supportive of this and wants Tommy to be at the forefront of change.

“But the music came drifting to him. Drifting through the streets of Johnson City, lifting itself like an anthem of everything that Tommy had ever heard about being black.” 

Tommy is at the march, listening to the marchers singing about freedom. He thinks of his ancestors, and what they have overcome. He imagines them singing those words, and he wonders how he can join them in changing African-American lives for the better.

“They didn’t give us the keys […] just the chains.” 

This quote from Tommy to the Sheriff highlights Moser’s lack of comprehension of what slaves have had to endure. 

“But remember, as much as we hate to turn away from people, we sometimes have to avoid letting them hold us back. You think about that.” 

Luvenia has visited Malcolm to give him the money to buy tickets for him and Shep to get to Curry Island. Neither she nor Malcolm, know where Shep is. While Luvenia wants Malcolm to help her in saving Shep from his drug addiction, she does not want this to result in Shep keeping Malcolm from the reunion at the Glory Field. 

“All I hear is about keeping the family together and the whole Curry thing. When I got caught up in a trick bag and needed some help, you know, what I heard was what I should have been doing, and what cousin so-and-so was doing, and how I should be. Got so heavy I had to leave it alone, man.”

Shep lives in a homeless shelter in Harlem and has an addiction to crack cocaine. He believes he is a lost cause, and that he can’t live up to the high standards of the Lewis family. He also feels that, despite the family’s reputation for having an unbreakable bond, he was left to look after himself. 

“He was still chained to the weight of it even though the truck was hurtling through the night. The chains could rattle, but they weren’t broken.” 

Once you’ve accepted something into your life, it influences you. It tells you what to think. If you don’t have the will or want to conquer it, you won’t be able to, and no one can for you. If you don’t stand up for yourself, you are never going to get your freedom.

“A black person? Those shackles didn’t rob us of being black, son, they robbed us of being human. Who should own them is a human being.” 

Robert Planter Lewis is a leader in the black community. He now owns the shackles after buying them at an auction. In this statement, he is telling Malcolm that the shackles took away Muhammad Bilal’s inalienable rights as a human being.