Author Description

"The book captures an important legal and historical moment and conveys a powerful social message." In the deep South during the early fifties, a promising young high school graduate's hope to attend college is handicapped by family poverty. Joey Henderson, the son of a black sharecropper, eagerly accepts a proposal to meet his educational costs if, for the NAACP, he will attempt to enroll in a local all-white institution (to further the organization's aim to eliminate segregation). Both his parents and his girlfriend Abby disapprove of this bold act and indeed Joey is faced with opposition and eventual violence. After a lengthy court case led by Thurgood Marshall and others, young Henderson is admitted to the white school only to meet the danger and circumstance of intense bigotry. This is an emotional story of sacrifice and determination which typified the pre-civil rights era and, on this occasion, transformed a rural community.