Anita Hemmings, the first African American student at Vassar College, is successfully passing as white, but is confronted by her wealthy roommate who threatens to reveal Anita's secret after she becomes infatuated with Anita's brother.

In the hours leading up to the scheduled execution of a black teen for the alleged rape of a white woman in 1943 Louisiana, the convicted boy, his father, the District Attorney, and other townspeople consider what the execution means to their community.

Searching for answers in the unsolved murder of her great-grandfather decades ago, Meghan Mackenzie, the youngest reporter at the Detroit Free Press, spurred by the urgency of the Black Lives Matter movement, travels to Birmingham where she uncovers secrets that put her own life in danger.