“Verta maintains that the Gullah, who originally spoke a language they called Ngulla, were from Angola and that in prehistory — you know, when the continents were all at­tached — what is now South Carolina was joined to what is now Angola”

“For both black and white, there is a pride in the fact that Atlanta has long been an oasis of relative political enlightenment sur­rounded by the redneck mandates of the rest of the state”

There isn’t a single second of “My Happy Family” that doesn’t ring as achingly true