"The Newbery Award-winning author of The Crossover pens an ode to black American triumph and tribulation, with art from a two-time Caldecott Honoree"-- The illustrations capture many famous black Americans and key moments in their struggle for freedom and equality, including people such as Martin Luther King, Billie Holiday, Wilma Rudolph, Langston Hughes, and Trayvon Martin, and events such as slavery, the Civil War, and the Civil Rights movement....

Each letter of the alphabet is represented by a line from a poem by different African American poets, describing an aspect of the black experience.

A collection of poems reminiscent of growing up as an African-American girl in Shorter, Alabama.