But mostly people believed. Folks in Cotton County were believers. They believed in Jesus foremost, and every holy cow and sheep in the barn he was born in. They believed in the Promised Land. It was far away, the Promised Land, on the other side of the world, but they believed that Jesus meant for them to be here, in Georgia, in the land of cotton, their own Promised Land, hard as times were. Jesus and Mary and Joseph were their people, country people suffering under the sun, and the people of Cotton County would be redeemed....So they believed that the babies were twins. Because if they didn't believe, then they didn't believe Genus Jackson was one of the daddies. They'd have to believe that the daddy was someone else. They'd have to believe that a mob of white men killed a black man for no reason. And they...
-- Narrator (chapter 3)