Karen Hunter and Dr. Daniel Black discussed Cebo Campbell’s novel “Sky Full of Elephants” during a recent conversation that moved from literature to deliberations on community and healing.
Hunter described how members of a private reading group spent about 12 weeks working through the book together.
“It took us about 12 weeks to read ‘Sky Full of Elephants’ because we would stop after a few pages and people would share their personal experiences,” she said.
The group also revisited Toni Morrison’s influence on Campbell’s work.
Hunter noted that Campbell has said Morrison’s novel “Sula” inspired him to “put down the football and pick up the writing pen.” She said Morrison’s writing continues to resonate with readers because of its focus on agency and storytelling. “She’s healing us,” Hunter said.
The discussion turned to a key moment in “Sula” involving the character Eva Peace confronting her son Plum after he returns from war, struggling with addiction and trauma. Hunter described Plum as someone who “came back completely broken, addicted to drugs, stealing from the family, disrupting the whole household.”
Dr. Black added that Morrison’s scene carries symbolic meaning that readers often overlook.
“Most people would be too if they understood it symbolically,” he said of Eva’s difficult decision in the story. “What she did is God came off the throne to come down.”
Black said the moment illustrates the idea that transformation often comes through difficult processes. “God saves us very, very often in painful ways,” he said. “Sometimes rejection is God actually saving your destiny.”
The conversation then shifted to more considerable social questions about American culture and inequality. Black argued that the concept of the American Dream is built on imbalance. “The American dream absolutely requires someone to lose that you might win,” he said.
Hunter agreed and described a video she had seen in which a child shared a banana with two others. “He made sure that everybody ate,” she said. “That’s natural to me. But this is the country that has informed the rest of the world that we have to have everything even if it means everyone else has nothing.”
Black said those values can change. “We’ve made discrimination heavenly,” he said. “But we can unmake it.”
Watch the full clip below.
