As the Civil Rights movement begins to reach the black enclave of Frenchtown in segregated Tallahassee, Elwood Curtis takes the words of Dr. Martin Luther King to heart: He is "as good as anyone." Abandoned by his parents, but kept on the straight and narrow by his grandmother, Elwood is about to enroll in the local black college. But for a black boy in the Jim Crow South of the early 1960s, one innocent mistake is enough to destroy the future. Elwood...

A young mother finds refuge and friendship at a boardinghouse in 1960s Memphis, Tennessee, where family encompasses more than just blood and hidden truths can bury you or set you free. "Sara King has nothing, save for her secrets and the baby in her belly, as she boards the bus to Memphis, hoping to outrun her past in Chicago. She is welcomed with open arms by Mama Sugar, a kindly matriarch and owner of the popular boardinghouse The Scarlet Poplar....

"Solenne Bonet is DoS--a Descendant of Slave--and has always known that her destiny would be in the service of men. At school, it is what she has been trained for, waiting for an algorithm to assign her to a white man, one of the thousands who sign up to be contract holders. She knows that there are girls who hope to be more than Maid or Mammy, who whisper about how they will get a white man to sign their freedom, how they will be sweet, but not sweet...