Although antebellum African Americans were sometimes allowed to attend Quaker services, they were almost never admitted to full "meeting" membership, as was Miles Lassiter. His story illuminates the unfolding of the 19th-century color line into the 20th. It reminds us that, while traditional texts recount grand events, true history tells of everyday people who do extraordinary things quietly, not even realizing that they have left their mark. Margo Williams had only a handful of stories and a few names her mother remembered from her childhood about her family's home in Asheboro, North...