A place, a state of mind and the heart of the Deep South, Mississippi is a cauldron in which much of this nation's history has been forged. It is also where Anthony Walton's parents came - and escaped - from. And when he found himself, as a young man, confronted by the unexpected and ongoing force of racism, he resolved to return to Mississippi, to go back to the beginning in order to understand how this disease became an integral part of the American psyche.

Walton's journey encompasses the full expanse of the state's rich and tragic history - from the subjugation of the Natchez empire to the Civil War, from the Ku Klux Klan to the civil rights movement - and a huge roster of martyrs, bigots, writers, bluesmen, planters and sharecroppers, black and white alike. And he discovers as well the experiences of his mother and father, the vast differences between their early lives and his own, and the complex racial realities of the present day.