What chapters, stories or acts that you read about stood out the most to you? Which sections were the hardest for you to read?

What chapters, stories or acts that you read about stood out the most to you? Which sections were the hardest for you to read?

"Inheritance" - the Bolling Family story was so sad. "Church" was powerful and showed unbelievable spirit and fortitude. "Music" was nostalgic and informative. We used to watch Al Jolson in our living room in the 60s and I loved those stories. I never knew this was part of "minstrel" shows that were actually derogatory for Black Americans any more than I ever thought twice about who "Mr. Bojangles" actually was. I just knew I loved the song and it did have overtures of sadness. Human beings can be so ignorant. Again, I wonder how many Americans would have actually supported the horrors, had they understood or even knew what was happening beginning in 1619.

The chapter on Fear (#4) was one of many that stand-out for me. Expertly weaving in events we all lived through, such as the killing of George Floyd, with historical perspective, the authors adeptly lead us through a social and political journey to the state of racism in the US today and provide a glimmer of hope for future generations.

Sugar stood out for me because I knew (or thought I knew) about life on cotton plantations, I had no idea the suffering of sugar slavery. I also thought the Justice chapter was compelling because it laid how African Americans were kept from building wealth. Truthfully, I started underlining passages I found compelling and ended up underlining most of the book!

All of the chapters had information that stood out to me. Like Gloria, I was not aware of the significance that sugar played in our early years. I was aware of cotton and tobacco, but I missed the impact that sugar had.

It was hard to pick just one, but the Capitalism chapter angered me the most. It laid out very clearly why there is such a huge gap between Black and White wealth in this country. It made a strong case for reparations to African Americans, even though I have no idea how it would happen and I’m not sure it would reduce the gap much. White men literally got wealthy off the backs of enslaved people.