You’ve seen the photo before, whether you remember it or not. It depends on how well you were paying attention in history class the day they talked about segregation. In your textbook was this picture of a black student surrounded by a white mob. At the center of said mob is a single white teenager screaming in blind rage.

In case you’re wondering if maybe she’s shouting words of encouragement there, what she’s saying is “Go home, n****r! Go back to Africa!”

That photo became a perfect symbol of the struggle for desegregation. If it had been staged, it’d have been criticized for being too on the nose. But the two figures at the center of it aren’t symbols – they’re people. And hearing what happened after this photo will change how you think of America forever. Or it will change how you think of America for a while, then you’ll kind of forget about it. Either one.