One Man's Battle

One Man's Battle is a story of struggle and redemption, told with honesty and refreshing candor. Rufus Battle's book is a must-read for anyone who wants to understand what it means to be Black and American in the 21st century.

"It was 1947 in America... This was the year a young African-American ballplayer with the Brooklyn Dodgers named Jackie Robinson won the inaugural Major League Baseball Rookie of the Year Award. It was the year Richard Nixon was sworn into the House of Representatives, The year Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier, the year Henry Ford died. 1947 was the year the Marshall Plan was launched, Miracle on 34th Street was released, and Hillary Rodham Clinton was born... So was I..." So begins Rufus Battle's compelling account of an African-American life lived, from a sharecroppers' shack near a Louisiana cotton field, to the shores of the Pacific and beyond. ONE MAN'S BATTLE is a story of struggle and redemption, told with honesty and refreshing candor. Mr. Battle's book is a must-read for anyone who wants to understand what it means to be Black and American in the 21st century.

Rufus Battle was born in a shack on the edge of a Louisiana cotton field in 1947. After a childhood in Tensas Parish few living Americans can relate to, Battle left for New Orleans, hoping for a better life. After stints in the Armed Forces, he carved out a successful high tech career, in LA, Colorado, and Silicon Valley. From an early age however, Battle struggled with deep feelings of inadequacy, the personal legacy of having grown up poor and Black in the rural Deep South during the dark days of Jim Crow. Inspired by the rock-solid religiosity of his grandmother, Battle changed his life, leaving his technology career behind to pursue religious studies with a particular focus on the role of the Black church in shaping African-American culture. Battle holds a Masters degree in theology from Pepperdine University. He lives in Vallejo, California.