Diggin’: Cora Fluker – Amazing Grace
inTheir Musicon July 21, 2020
Cora Fluker was born in Livingston, Alabama, around 1920. When Denise and I visited her in 1997 it was a deeply moving experience. She told us of a childhood growing up sharecropping with her family. The conditions were so hard that she tried to run away at the age of nine only to be caught by the white landowner and beaten nearly to death. She showed us the scars on her back and seemed deeply haunted by this awful memory. She then broke out a testimony about her life and what led her to her praying ground under a pecan tree where she had a vision of Jesus and since devoted her life to preaching. When she sang and preached her voice had the power of a saxophone. The last time I visited Cora, who has since passed, she was in ill health and unable to sing. She told me of how all music came from the air and if I lived right we would meet again in heaven.
– Timothy Duffy