Answer:
My narrative follows the parallel lives of two families - one white, one black - in the American South during the decades after the Civil War and abolition of slavery. The Wilsons are a wealthy white family who owned a large cotton plantation worked by enslaved laborers before the war. The Jacksons were an African American family cruelly torn apart when some members were sold away from the plantation. Despite the end of legal slavery, the Wilsons employ tactics of intimidation, violence, and institutionalized racism to attempt to maintain their supremacy and forced labor system. The Jacksons, though legally free, face incredible hardship, oppression, and the ever-present threat of racial terror as they try to build a new life.
The harsh realities of the Reconstruction era South form the backdrop, as told through the intersecting storylines and multiple perspectives within and between the two families. A major theme that emerges is the vast gap between lofty ideals of equality and the bitter realities on the ground, as well as the immense human toll and resilience demanded in the fight for justice and freedom. Personal stories of love, loss, hope and resistance are woven through the larger historical narrative of blacks' long struggle against dehumanization, disenfranchisement and white supremacy in the wake of slavery's abolition.
