Teddy has her first inkling that something is awry in her small Mississippi town when she witnesses a crossburning from her attic window. Soon after, she starts hearing about a group called the Ku Klux Klan. Then Teddy discovers that her father, the bank president, is a Klansman and that he participated in the lynching of a black man who is the father of Teddy's best friend, Stella.Teddy loves her father, but she hates what he has done. Along with Stella, she joins in a protest march and organizes a "sit-in" at the local drugstore, where only white people are allowed to sit on the stools. Furious, Teddy, s father sends her to stay with her aunt in New York City.Teddy returns home to find that her parents are separating. As Teddy's social consciousness emerges over the next five years, while she witnesses the events of the civil rights movement, she and her mother help each other learn to speak out against racism and injustice.