Her first husband, Richard, was wrongfully accused of being a part of a robbery because of his skin color. The owner saw the faces of who robbed him including Richard’s and said, “Yeah, that’s them, all right.’ Then Richard shouted: ‘But I wasn’t there! Look at me goddammit-I wasn’t there!’ ‘You black bastards,’ the man said, looking at him, ‘you’re all the same”(Go Tell It on the Mountain, 202). The owner didn’t really care if Richard did it or not, he saw all of them equally at fault. This resulted in his sentence to jail where he in turn committed suicide. Race and racism not only took away the love of Elizabeth’s life but her ability to fully trust herself or anyone. Elizabeth blamed Richards’s death on herself so when her second husband Gabriel criticizes her for having a bastard son she shrivels up inside with guilt and