The great scholar, W. E. B. Du Bois, once wrote about the Problem of race in America, and what he called “Double Consciousness,” a sensitivity that every African American possesses in order to survive. Since childhood, Ailey Pearl Garfield has understood Du Bois’s words all too well—bearing the names of two formidable Black Americans, she carries Du Bois’s Problem on her shoulders. From an early age, Ailey fights a battle for belonging that’s made all the more difficult by a hovering trauma, as well as the whispers of women that urge Ailey to succeed in their stead. Ailey embarks on a journey through her family’s past, uncovering the shocking tales of generations of ancestors, and learn to embrace her full heritage, a legacy of oppression and resistance, bondage and independence, cruelty and resilience that is the story—and the song—of America itself.