The launch of Sputnik. Rock 'n' roll fever. The struggle for civil rights. Robert Vaughan's seventh volume of the American Chronicles has America entering the fifties amidst the fright of a cold war with Russia and a fiery war in Korea. Prizewinning war correspondent Shaylin McKay and African-American war hero Travis Jackson have a date with destiny. Back home, sexy screen siren Marcella Mills and Hollywood's leading lady Demaris Hunter find both their careers and their emotions harnessed to the rising fame of a sensual country boy with a guitar. Two brothers, Deon and Artemus Booker, are splitting their famous family apart by choosing different paths—one on the white man's basketball courts of the NBA, and the other off to Alabama to stand up for justice and equal rights with a young Martin Luther King, Jr., as the American Chronicles go on.