It was also the first day back for the principal, Hulond Humphries, a white man who was reinstated by a 4-to-2 vote of the school board after being suspended on March 14.

One evening, he waited in the temple until all the visitors had gone home. He stood very quietly outside the entrance of the Buddha Hall.

And so one day, my best friend and our CFO, Huggus, said to me, Brian, there's a problem, you know we don't have money.