It's 1963, and fourteen-year-old Esther Young has struck up a friendship with a black teen accused of murdering a white man in Alabama. King-Roy Johnson shows up on Esther's doorstep that summer feeling betrayed by the nonviolent teachings of Martin Luther King Jr. Sent north by his mother to escape a lynch mob, he meets a follower of Malcolm X's who uses radical teachings about black revolution to fuel King-Roy's anger and frustration. But with each other's help, both Esther and King-Roy learn the true nature of integrity and find the power to stand up for what is right.