Book excerpt: Things were changing rapidly in the world around us - and we were absorbing much of it. I want to tell you a story about a group of young, gifted, black boys growing up in the slums of a major industrial city in the U.S. Notwithstanding their social status in neo-slavery America, they had dreams. One of them (in particular) had the wildest dream of all. He believed he could become the mayor of their hometown. It was the summer of 1954 amidst Brown vs. Board of Education in the segregated, southern town of Petersville. Billy Strayhorn, the new kid on the block, had just graduated grammar school and the events of the night would forever change his life. Follow the lives of Teddy "T.C." Chambers, Ronald Jackson, Wiley Fentress, Leonard Marcus, George "Snake" Martin, Demitrius "Meat" Walker and Billy Strayhorn as their world evolves out of the conditions they are facing. Freedom rides, sit-ins, arrests, deployment to Vietnam and law school are just a few of the events that unfold, forever impacting their lives. Power, deception and crime threaten to destroy the influence of each man as this political tale uncovers the realities that contributed to modern Black politics in the United States.