Growing up in the segregated town of Clarksville, Tennessee, in the 1960s, Alta's family cannot afford to buy her new sneakers--but she still plans to attend the parade celebrating her hero Wilma Rudolph's three Olympic gold medals.
In 1937, twelve-year-old Patsy and her family travel from Detroit to Tennessee to visit her grandmother. They leave in a first-class train car and Patsy is shocked to discover that they must change seats and ride in the cramped "colored car" when they get further south. When Patsy returns home she examines her experience in the colored car and the subtle injustices her family faces in Detroit.
