The launch of Sputnik. Rock 'n' roll fever. The struggle for civil rights. Robert Vaughan's seventh volume of the American Chronicles has America entering the fifties amidst the fright of a cold war with Russia and a fiery war in Korea. Prizewinning war correspondent Shaylin McKay and African-American war hero Travis Jackson have a date with destiny. Back home, sexy screen siren Marcella Mills and Hollywood's leading lady Demaris Hunter find both their careers and their emotions harnessed to the rising fame of a sensual country boy with a guitar. Two brothers, Deon and Artemus Booker, are splitting their famous family apart by choosing different paths--one on the white man's basketball courts of the NBA, and the other off to Alabama to stand up for justice and equal rights with a young Martin Luther King, Jr., as the American Chronicles go on.