In 1972\, when workers in Pottstown\, Penn sylvania\, were digging the foundations for a new development\, the last t hing they expected to find was a skeleton at the bottom of a well. Who the skeleton was and how it got there were two of the long-held secrets kept by the residents of Chicken Hill\, the dilapidated neighborhood where immi grant Jews and African Americans lived side by side and shared ambitions a nd sorrows. Chicken Hill was where Moshe and Chona Ludlow lived when Moshe integrated his theater and where Chona ran the Heaven &\; Earth Grocer y Store. When the state came looking for a deaf boy to institutionalize hi m\, it was Chona and Nate Timblin\, the Black janitor at Moshe&rsquo\;s th eater and the unofficial leader of the Black community on Chicken Hill\, w ho worked together to keep the boy safe.
\nAs these characters&rsquo \; stories overlap and deepen\, it becomes clear how much the people who l ive on the margins of white\, Christian America struggle and what they mus t do to survive. When the truth is finally revealed about what happened on Chicken Hill and the part the town&rsquo\;s white establishment played in it\, McBride shows us that even in dark times\, it is love and community& mdash\;heaven and earth&mdash\;that sustain us.
\n\nT his program will be held in the Brenner Room.
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