Born to a poor couple who were tenant farmers on a plantation in Mississippi, Anne Moody lived through some of the most dangerous days of the pre-civil rights era in the South. The week before she began high school came the news of Emmet Till's lynching. Before then, she had "known the fear of hunger, hell, and the Devil. But now there was...the fear of being killed just because I was black." In that, moment was born the passion for freedom and justice...

In the small town of Lowfield, Mississippi, a series of murders have begun, starting with the town doctor and his wife. Six months later, newspaper reporter Catherine, the daughter of the murdered couple, discovers a body at an abandoned cabin on the family land. At first, Catherine is the only one who believes that the new murder is connected to her parents' death, but her eager fellow reporter, Tom, desperate for a big story, joins her investigation,...

The author grew up in the woods of Mississippi amid poverty, hunger, fear, and hatred. He lied, stole, and raged at those around him; at six he was a "drunkard", hanging about in taverns. Surly, brutal, cold, suspicious, and self-pitying, he was surrounded on one side by whites who were either indifferent to him, pitying, or cruel, and on the other side by blacks who resented anyone trying to rise above the common law. This is the author's powerful...