What was life like for Gifty's family living in Huntsville in the novel, Transcendent Kingdom?

Gifty's family experienced alienation and overt racism at times because Huntsville was a predominantly white city with conservative Southern values. However, Gifty's mother found a sense of community at the Pentecostal Church, First Assemblies of God, which was located in a strip mall and "packed full of white, red-blooded southerners in their pastel polos and khakis" (43). Attending this church ultimately caused Gifty to experience a religious crisis, as she was hurt when the congregation expressed racist views and failed to support her family during Nana's addiction: "...not all churches in America are created equal," she explains, "...And, for me, the damage of going to a church where people whispered disparaging words about 'my kind' was itself a spiritual wound" (174).