An unflinching story about racism and culture clash in the 1960s.
The year is 1964, and Alice Ann Moxley's FBI-agent father has been
reassigned from Chicago to Jackson, Mississippi, to protect black people
who are registering to vote. Alice finds herself thrust into the midst
of the racial turmoil that dominates current events, especially when a
Negro girl named Valerie Taylor joins her sixth-grade class -- the first
of two black students at her new school because of a mandatory
integration law.
When Alice finds it difficult to penetrate the clique of girls at school
she calls the Cheerleaders (they call her Yankee Girl), she figures
Valerie, being the other outsider, will be easier to make friends with.
But Valerie isn't looking for friends. Rather, Valerie silently endures
harassment from the Cheerleaders, much worse than what Alice is put
through. Soon Alice realizes the only way to befriend the girls is to
seem like a co-conspirator in their plans to make Valerie miserable.
It takes a horrible tragedy for her to realize the complete
ramifications of following the crowd instead of her heart.