Meridian Hill grew up in modest circumstances in the Southern world of racism, poverty, and social neglect. It left her, at seventeen, a deserted teen-age mother very nearly as innocent as her baby, with a vision totally circumscribed by the limits of her own meager experience. Meridian’s future seemed over even before it had properly begun. Then one day, impelled by curiosity to find out what sort of people they were, Meridian volunteered to help in the local civil-rights movement. It was to change her life.