Please help with a plot point.

I think you are confusing two different things. Francis went to some sort of historical ceremony where he met a Civil War reenactor who played Francis' ancestor as a Rebel soldier. The man had done a great deal of research and was dead serious never cracking a smile. Francis later had nightmares about his ancestor.

The photograph incident cost Francis the primary in South Carolina which is his home state. An old photo of Francis' father, the local banker and a Klux Klux Klan leader was leaked to one of his hometown enemies who used it in a flyer.

It cost Francis the primary in his home state despite his explanation that his father had to do it to get a bank loan to save their farm and everything the family had accumulated. He told black church members his father had no sympathy for the Klan and had never joined it. It did no good as African Americans there had such bad memories of being abused by the Klan.


I don't know everything. Neither does anyone else