Insightful look at life for black people in Harlem. So many deaths of black people at the hands of white people; and so shameful that people could be so awful to people who look different than them.

One thing that stood out in this book is when

Elizabeth wears a ring on her finger to pretend to be married

It was like what the woman does in Stephen King's story The Breathing Method, in which a woman is pregnant and unmarried. While the women in both stories have different skin color, they still get shamed for being unwed mothers.

The only thing I disliked about this book was the preaching, but I can understand that in a time of racism and the threat of being murdered any day, black people probably relied on religion to comfort themselves.