" People began to shout , to rise from their seats and clap and cry out , a forceful wind carrying the reverend 's voice up into the rafters .... And in that single note -- hope ! -- I heard something else ; at the foot of that cross , inside the thousands of churches across the city , I imagined the stories of ordinary black people merging with the stories of David and Goliath , Moses and Pharaoh , the Christians in the lion 's den , Ezekiel 's field of dry bones .