Content Warning: This text contains racist language, including racial expletives, and violence, as well as depictions of oppression, enslavement, and death by suicide. This study guide quotes and obscures the author’s use of the n-word.

Belton Piedmont is the protagonist of the text. At the beginning of the novel, he is eight years old and lives in a one-room home. He is beginning school for the first time, something that his mother requires him to do, believing that education is the key to his future success. The novel then follows him through high school, where he is abused by the teacher regularly, yet also driven to be more successful through his competition with Bernard. He is educated in a wide range of topics, particularly the English language and history, and leaves high school as a great speaker with respect from his peers. This continues in college, where he convinces his classmates to fight for equality for their only Black teacher and is unmatched in his intelligence. Upon graduation, he struggles with using his education, first losing his job as an educator for writing against political corruption, then losing his job in the post office for refusing to support the postmaster’s candidate due to his racist nature.