Eastern Oklahoma, 1928. Eighteen-year-old Maud Nail lives with her rogue father and sensitive brother on one of the allotments parceled out by the U.S. Government to the Cherokees when their land was confiscated for Oklahoma's statehood. Maud's days are filled with hard work and simple pleasures, but often marked by violence and tragedy, a fact that she accepts with determined practicality. Her prospects for a better life are slim, but when a newcomer...

Twelve-year-old Lena is aware of racism, but she lives a comfortable life in the segregated but relatively wealthy Greenwood District in Tulsa, Oklahoma; but on May 31, 1921 racial tensions explode, and men from downtown Tulsa invade Greenwood, set on killing and destroying the district--and as the violence escalates Lena, her parents, and her older sister search desperately for a safe place to hide from the mob.

In 1922, thirteen-year-old Woodrow Harper and his recently-widowed mother move to his father's childhood home in Lawton, Oklahoma, where he is torn between the "right people" of the Ku Klux Klan and those who encourage him to follow the path of his "nigra-loving" father.

In 1935, dust storms are sweeping across the southern plains of the United States, including Oklahoma. Twelve-year-old Millie is worried about her family's survival. The Dust Bowl is getting worse, and they're running out of food and money. Despite the hardships, Pa doesn't want to abandon the farm, which has been in the family for generations. But when the worst "black blizzard" yet hits, they have no choice. The family decides to make the journey...