" Later, sitting in American History 101, I realized why I felt so at home at the church. After the industrial revolution came the great migration, as black sharecroppers traveled up to Chicago for better-paying factory jobs and a shot at a new life. But they were all southerners. They formed their own communities, and the culture survived. The people at Mrs. Burroughs’s church spoke with long liquid vowels and blurred consonants, cooked everything in lard, moved with a languorous grace that implied it was 100 degrees outside. They could have been my relatives. "

― Joshilyn Jackson , Gods in Alabama