In the summer of 1988, twelve-year-old Chuck Bell is sent to stay with his grandparents, where he discovers jazz and basketball and learns more about his family's past.

"Inspired by true events that rocked the nation, a profoundly moving novel about a Black nurse in post-segregation Alabama who blows the whistle on a terrible wrong done to her patients, from the New York Times bestselling author of Wench. Montgomery, Alabama, 1973. Fresh out of nursing school, Civil Townsend has big plans to make a difference, especially in her African American community. At the Montgomery Family Planning Clinic, she intends to help...

"In the summer of 1965, Sophie's family becomes the first African Americans to move into their upper middle-class neighborhood in Los Angeles. When riots erupt in nearby Watts, she learns that life and her own place in it are a lot more complicated than they had seemed"--

It is 1983 and Vanessa Martin, a thirteen-year-old African American girl in Newark's public housing, dreams of following in the footsteps of the first black Miss America, Vanessa Williams; but with a dysfunctional family (mother in jail, father withdrawn, drunken grandfather, gay cousin) the odds are against her--until a new teacher at school organizes a beauty pageant and encourages Vanessa to enter.

In August 1965, twelve-year-old Eden's older cousin from Mississippi comes to visit her in Los Angeles, and while the Watts Riots erupt around them, they continue their investigation of the disappearance of Winter's father ten years ago.

When nine-year-old Clem's father dies in the Port Chicago Disaster he is forced to navigate his family's losses and struggles in 1940's Chicago. 1944. Clem's father is away, serving as a sailor in World War II. When the family receives news that his father has died in the infamous Port Chicago explosion in San Francisco, everything begins to fall apart. Clem's mother is forced to work long, tough hours as a maid for a wealthy white family. The obstacles...

Loretta, Roly, and Aggie B. Little relate their Mississippi family's struggles and triumphs from 1927 to 1968 while struggling as sharecroppers, living under Jim Crow, and fighting for Civil Rights.

Paralyzed by guilt, eleven-year-old John Henry must come to terms with the events surrounding his Ma's near drowning and with the help of his twin sister Hattie, learn to embrace life again.

"Centers on Abel and Vera Paisley, a working-class Jamaican couple striving to build a better life for their children. Abel travels to London in the early 1960s in search of fortune. Instead, he sees an opportunity to escape the drudgery of his life by faking his death and assuming a new identity. Vera, now a widow, is racked with guilt over her husband's "death" and takes out her grief on her children, Irene and Vincent. The effects of Abel's decision...

Overview: As the civil rights struggle heats up in Texas, two families-one white, one black-find common ground. This semi-autobiographical tale is set in 1967 Texas, against the backdrop of the fight for civil rights. A white family from a notoriously racist neighborhood in the suburbs and a black family from its poorest ward cross Houston's color line, overcoming humiliation, degradation, and violence to win the freedom of five black college students...