When Granddaddy Clisby (Richard Gant) expresses his mistrust of doctors, one of the reasons he gives is: "you remember your cousin Darnell? Well, he's being treated by some doctors over at Tuskegee in some special studies. But I'm telling you: the man is only getting worse!" This is a reference to what was originally called the "Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male" and is now referred to as the "U.S. Public Health Service Syphilis Study at Tuskegee." Lasting from 1932 to 1972, the so-called "study" observed hundreds of Black men both with and without syphilis, always withholding syphilis treatment from them (even after syphilis became completely curable with penicillin) and in some cases never even informing them that they had a communicable disease. Not only did many of the men die avoidable deaths due to advanced, untreated syphilis, in many cases they also inadvertently infected their wives and in-utero children. The "study" is now considered one of the most notorious ethical travesties in the history of American medicine, and it is the basis for many African Americans' mistrust of the medical establishment into the present day (many articles in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic brought up the difficulties that the lingering fear and mistrust fomented by the "study" still posed to public health educators trying to reach Black communities). This show is set in Montgomery, which is only about 40 miles west of Tuskegee, Alabama.; showrunner Saladin K. Patterson spent some of his childhood in Tuskegee.