Breaking Dawn

This collection of poetry was written over the last twenty-five years of Rev. Cordell Sloan’s life. Still, his voice and the themes embodied are ageless. Each poem is a window that gives a glimpse into his heart, his soul, and the depth of his faith. This collection expresses all the emotions of life, love, pain, joy, disappointment, expectation, perseverance, and death. They represent the human condition and are divided into nine categories, spiritual, inspirational, nature, the passage of time, love and longings, life and living, the Black man, life in the ghetto, and racial inequality. Reverend Cordell Holland Sloan, affectionately known as Rev. in the Ludlow community, was an extraordinary man whose life was full and amazing. He survived a brain tumor at age 13, and in spite of being legally blind from damage caused by the tumor, he went on to become a scholar at Tennessee State University, formerly A & I State College, The Presbyterian Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, and Vanderbilt University Divinity School. He was a Civil Rights activist, having his own children integrate an elementary school in Lebanon, TN in 1961. He worked diligently to diminish the gang violence in North Philadelphia while he pastored an urban church (Temple United Presbyterian Church), raised six children with his wife, Mary, and beat pancreatic cancer in 1974. He passed away July 6, 1987.