When Tweedy began medical school, he envisioned a bright future where his segregated, working-class background would become irrelevant. Instead he found himself grappling with race, bias, and the unique health problems of black Americans, and met a professor who bluntly questioned whether he belonged in medical school. In examining the complex ways in which both black doctors and patients must navigate the difficult and often contradictory terrain of race and medicine, he illustrates the complex social, cultural, and economic factors at the root of most health problems in the black community.