Summary

In Part I, Chapter 11, worried about the birth control rumors, Civil asks Alicia and Ty to visit the Tuskegee university librarian Miss Pope with her. Miss Pope “was the first feminist intellectual” Civil met, and she helped Civil when she got pregnant (70). Miss Pope explains that drugs are often used before they are FDA approved, pointing to “the history of medical experimentation on Black folks” (74). She discusses the experiments associated with Black men with syphilis.

In Chapter 12, “Jackson, 2016,” driving through Jackson, Civil remembers Medgar Evers’s murder and “the Deep South in the 1960s” (78). She arrives at Riverwood Plantation where Civil lives with her husband. Alicia “ended her nursing career after having children” (79). Civil and Alicia catch up about their lives. Alicia wants to know why Civil disappeared years prior. Civil apologizes for “walk[ing] out on [their] friendship,” but Alicia...