Brett concludes the series on race and religion in America by traveling back in time to the end of the Middle Ages. He argues that understanding the emergence of the modern, secular mindset is key for understanding the rise and fall of the Civil Rights Movement. The Puritans brought a new modern mindset to America and ensured a tenuous future for our experiments in the ancient Greek ideal of the democratic republic. Black civil society, excluded from participation in American society, independently developed the kinds of traditions necessary to sustain democratic participation. During the 1960s, the inherent contradictions of modernity and American society came to a clamoring head. As a result, we are living today in the aftermath of processes that span the centuries.