A multi-generational family history told in the voices of the author's ancestors, spanning enslavement alongside Frederick Douglass at Maryland's Wye House plantation, service in the U.S. Colored Troops, and the founding of all-Black Reconstruction-era communities.
Set in 1865, a young girl named Lettie saves her money so she and her uncle can place an advertisement to find the members of their family that were separated under slavery.