"Now, we ain't got nothing to do with God's business," she says, sitting back in her seat. She adjusts herself and straightens her scarf, contenting … - Isabel Wilkerson

America is an old house...whatever flaws were left unattended in the original foundation. When you live in an old house you may not want to go into the basement after a storm to see what the rains have wrought. Choose not to look, however, at your own peril.....Ignorance is no protection from consequences of inaction.

The story describes an incident during the trial of a black schoolteacher accused of disposing of a mule on which there was a mortgage. A defense witness, who was colored but looked white, took the stand and was being sworn in when the judge told the sheriff the man had been given the wrong Bible.

But in the same way that individuals cannot move forward, become whole and healthy, unless they examine the domestic violence they witnessed as children or the alcoholism that runs in their family, the country cannot become whole until it confronts what was not a chapter in its history, but the basis of its economic and social order. For a quarter millennium, slavery was the country.