Malcolm Little's parents have always told him that he can achieve anything, but from what he can tell, that's a pack of lies -- after all, his father's been murdered, his mother's been taken away, and his dreams of becoming a lawyer have gotten him laughed out of school. There's no point in trying, he figures, and lured by the nightlife of Boston and New York, he escapes into a world of fancy suits, jazz, girls, and reefer. But Malcolm's efforts to...

"The dramatic story of W. E. B. Du Bois's reckoning with the betrayal of Black soldiers during World War I--and a new understanding of one of the great twentieth-century writers"--

Follows two men--both of whom went to the same school and fought in the same war, but who never met because one was white and one was black--as they meet fifty years after World War II and join forces to tell young people why race once made all the difference--and why it shouldn't matter anymore.