The Bishop looked at him coldly and said ``Take it or leave it!''

Literally, there was nothing else to do. He was caught in a machine. But Sojourner was not easily excited or upset and said quite calmly: ``Let's go and see what it's like.''

Annisberg was about seventy-five miles west of Birmingham, near the Georgia border and on the Tallahoosa River, a small and dirty stream. The city was a center of manufacture, especially in textiles, and also because of the beauty of some of its surroundings, a residence for many owners of the great industries in north Alabama. But it had, as was usual in southern cities of this sort, a Black Bottom, a low region near the river where the Negroes lived -- servants and laborers huddled together in a region with no sewage save the river, where streets and sidewalks were neglected and where there was much poverty and crime.

Wilson came by train from Birmingham and looked the city over; the rather pleasant white city was on the hill where the chief stores were. Beyond were industries and factories. Then they went down to Black Bottom. In the midst of this crowded region was the Allen African Methodist Episcopal Church. It was an old and dirty wooden structure, sadly in need of repair. But it was a landmark. It had been there 50 years or more and everybody in town, black and white, knew of it. It had just suffered a calamity, the final crisis in a long series of calamities. For the old preacher who had been there twenty-five years was dead, and the city mourned him.