There was a time in the Mississippi Delta when the only world the blacks knew was one of servant-hood to the landowners. Young George Barton was born into that world; but in rural Bluff City the tide is changing.

Bluff City is a small world within the Mississippi Delta where George, Alex, and Jony grow up as friends, having many happy times playing together at No Mistake Plantation a few miles outside of town. George is black and the son of the cook for the big house where Jony's parents, the Wentworths, live. Alex is the son of a white CEO whose family moved to this small...