Twelve-year-old Patsy keeps a diary of the ripe but confusing time following the end of the Civil War and the granting of freedom to former slaves.

Obi escapes from slavery during the Civil War, joins a black Union regiment, and soon becomes involved in the bloody fighting at Fort Pillow, Tennessee.

When Kofi's father, an Ashanti chief, is killed, Kofi is sold as a slave and ends up in Massachusetts, where his fate is in the hands of Paul Cuffe, an African American shipbuilder who works to return slaves to their homeland in Africa.

A fourteen-year-old black girl tries to find a fellow ex-slave, who had joined the Union army during the Civil War, during the confusing times after the emancipation of the slaves.

Maria Peterson is looking forward to turning thirteen. She envisions new adult privileges, such as attending abolitionist meetings and listening to inspiring speakers like Sojourner Truth. But she is not quite prepared for all the unexpected changes that come with her thirteenth year. For starters, the city of New York wants to turn her community into a big park and force the Peters family and their neighbors to move elsewhere. And now that Maria...