Before Chapter 1 begins, Noah gives a brief, one-page overview of apartheid in South Africa:

The genius of apartheid was convincing people who were the overwhelming majority to turn on each other. Apart hate, is what it was. You separate people into groups and make them hate one another so you can run them all (3).

During apartheid, Black South Africans outnumbered white South Africans five to one, yet Black South Africans were divided into tribes that “clashed and warred with one another” (3). White South Africans used this division to their advantage by giving different tribes “differing levels of rights and privileges in order to keep them at odds” and to essentially control them (3). The biggest division occurred between the Zulu and the Xhosa. The Zulu are known for being warriors, while the Xhosa are considered the thinkers: “The Zulu went to war with the white man. The Xhosa played chess with the white man” (3). Instead of coming together to fight a common enemy, each group blamed each other for “a problem neither created” (4).

At the beginning of Chapter 1, Noah recalls being nine years old and thrown from a moving car by his mother. He says it happened on a Sunday because they were coming home from church.