West remembers that the Kentucky Workers Alliance, which he directed, demanded that Works Progress Administration (WPA) programs during the New Deal did not discriminate on the basis of race. His ideas were controversial enough that the sheriff of Paintsville sought to put West in jail. He hid out in the home of Elihu Trusty, an illiterate Pentecostal minister who was a powerful speaker. This passage presents a vivid picture of Trusty and life for the poor in the rural South.