Then, on April 4th, 1968, Dr King is assassinated on the balcony of his motel in Memphis, Tennessee. And the black nation rises as one to condemn the slaying of one of their prophets. For one week, it seems that the whole country will fall into the abyss. Derek, his family, and his whole community find themselves in the midst of a battle for the heart and soul of this new world as the violent side of the civil rights movement comes upon America in a volcanic fury.

In the spring of 1968, Martin Luther King preaches in vain for nonviolent protest against the US government; the world is enthralled but the new black communities of Washington, DC still seethe with anger against the iniquities of their society Derek Strange has witnessed the white establishment crush his mother, father, and friends their entire lives. Yet, barely out of school,Derek chooses to become a rookie cop in a police-force run by those he despises. Can one young man possibly make a difference? Derek believes that he can, but many of his own kind feel that he's a traitor.Meanwhile his older brother, Dennis, has recently returned from a stint in the military, and, with no job and no prospect of getting one, is drifting towards drugs and deadly alliances. And in another part of the city, a group of young men, twisted with racial hate, thrill-kill a young black man and plan a shotgun robbery that will have devastating implications for Derek, his partner Troy Peters, and Vaughn, a hard homicide investigator with ties to the Strange family.