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It's an October evening in 1932 and Macon County, Alabama.

A flatbed truck kicks up dust as it bumps along a remote country road.

Sitting crowded in the back is a group of African-American sharecroppers

weary from a long day picking cotton in the hot sun.

Among the passengers is 30-year-old Herman Shaw.

Herman sits slumped in the corner of the truck bed,

shivering despite the warm weather.

For several days now, Herman's health has been in rapid decline.

He's been losing weight, his muscles and joints ache,

and painful sores have appeared around his groin.

Herman fears that he's become the latest victim of the disease

that's been rampaging through America,

a pestilence that the locals around here simply call bad blood.

Herman wins his in pains the truck rolls to a stop.

Gingerly, he climbs down from the vehicle, begins walking the rest of the way home.

As Herman limps up the winding dirt path towards his wooden shack,

he notices a flyer nailed to a fence post.

In bold letters it reads,

Do you have bad blood?

...