When the town’s Police Chief finds out he is black, after living a life as a white man, he takes extreme measures to keep the secret away from his friend, the town’s judge, as well as his own wife, a liberal educated in the North, who wants to integrate her music school in the southern town of Hortonville during the early sixties. The philandering judge crosses racial lines by night and keeps his black family intact even though he must publicly keep conventional and political links strong. The town struggles with identity, racism, and murder, plus political and economic expediency amid the presence of the strong black church, a mainstay in the Beantown section of Hortonville. The presence of a new minister who eventually comes into town under a false identity, nevertheless engenders new life into the town. Friendships across racial lines are forged and tried in a charged atmosphere of cultural and political conventions. Gifted black teens Alisha and Leandro and white Wilma Jo mean to make a difference despite being educated in separate schools and provocation of peers within both races. Nevertheless, there is hope and redemption for the citizens of Hortonville as it goes forth painfully, but surely towards building the New South.