In 1934, Esther Popel had a conversation with God. Times were tough. America was going through political and economic changes. The stock market had crashed in 1929, the Great Depression was in full swing. Esther Popel's conversation with God was preserved in a collection of African American prayers of two centuries by James Melvin Washington. Esther Popel's voice is still heard in communities today.

	Give me the strength of verdant hills
	Washed clean by summer rain;
	Of purple hills
	At peace when weary Day sinks quietly to rest
	In Night's cool arms;
	Of rugged, wind whipped hills
	That lift their heads above the petty, lowland, valley things,
	And shake their shoulders free of bonds that hold them close to earth;
	Of snow-capped hills
	Sun kissed by day, by night
	Companioned by the stars;
	Of grim volcanoes pregnant with the fires of molten fury!
	Grant me strength,
	Great God, like that of hills!