After the Civil War the blacks were promised new rights and freedoms. In Colfax, the whites decided to oppose this new change that leads to the two forces to collide legally and physically, both ending in bloodshed. The Tademy family and Israel Smith and his family try to win their rights by any means while trying to keep their families together in such a hard time.

To be honest I was not excited to read this book at first. I have heard a thousand slavery and black oppression stories and I wasn’t necessarily eager about hearing another one that seemed to sound familiar. But this novel is different. The story is very impressive, the writing is lovely and the characters are genuinely developed. After we travel back in time to see the lives of the main characters while they grew up, you begin to care about the families and what happens to them.

At times the novel is predictable and it definitely has its sappy moments, but I think the importance of Tademy’s message is more relevant. The book almost seems to have a purpose, and that purpose is to send a message to African-Americans to be proud of their heritage and their people and never to forget it. I would recommend this book to a lot of people if I could, but specifically to young African-Americans who might have forgotten who they were and for the ones that never knew.

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