During the early 20th century, African Americans, many of them from the first generations born to freedom, left their homes in the rural South and moved into urban areas in the American South, North, West, and Midwest. As 500,000 people made this move, it was nicknamed the Great Migration, and it constituted the first of two such exoduses out of rural areas and into urban centers.

Known for its multitude of churches, Charleston was nicknamed “The Holy City” early in its history as a reference to the number of faith denominations represented by these institutions. Miles features this nickname in quotes as a reminder of Charleston’s dark past beneath its attractive veneer.

Paternalism was the pervasive mindset among white Southern elites that people of color were inherently inferior to white people and required the care and administration of whites. White Southern elites believed that they had the predestined right to exact their will over those they considered their inferiors and that they were following the rightful order of the natural world in exercising their dominion over others.