Presenting a study of African American healing, this work sheds light on a variety of folk practices and traces their development from the time of slavery through the Great Migrations. Through conversations with black Americans, it demonstrates how herbs, charms, and rituals continue folk healing performances.

Mitchem shows that these practices are not simply about healing; they are linked to expressions of faith, delineating aspects of a holistic epistemology and pointing to disjunctures between African American views of wellness and illness and those of the culture of institutional medicine.