Publisher's Synopsis
This is a harrowing story about an African-American female attorney from New York named Harriet Douglass. Harriet was a descendant of famed black orator and activist Frederick Douglass. Harriet always felt an obligation to live up to the lofty expectation of the legacy of the Douglass name but constantly struggled with the duality of her femininity in a male-dominated profession and her racial heritage in a white-dominated world. Harriet's journey began in 1963 in New York. She had just been victorious in a major criminal case and before the ink could dry on the verdict sheet, she was asked to go to Mississippi, the heart of Dixie, and defend Jacob Johnson, a black man accused of murdering a well-known and revered white politician named Elmer Hutchings. Although the story is fictional, the historical events and legal decisions during this volatile time in American history are not, events and decisions Harriet would have to cope with and overcome as she seeks to not only save Jacob Johnson's life, but also to discover who she truly is. Faced with racism, sexism, physical attacks, intimidation by those involved and responsible for actually killing Elmer Hutchings, government corruption, and turmoil in her personal relationship with her fiancée, Harriet, with the help of a handful of other brave individuals, both black and white, accomplishes the unthinkable.
