American Dogwood is a historical fiction set in the darkest years of Virginia's past. Despite the strides gained by the landmark decision of Brown v. Board of Education, the small rural community of Prince Edward County refused to integrate its public schools and eventually closed all public schools from 1959 until 1964.
American Dogwood is the simple and tragic story of one boy, Nicholas Ordell Williams, Knick-Knack, robbed of his education during his most formative years. His story is told as a series of flashbacks to Marta Rodriguez, a young graduate student from New Jersey, collecting stories from the victims of America s segregated past. We follow Knick-Knack and four of his closest friends, Peanut, Milk, Glass-Face, and Petticoat through a deeply segregated south. The summer of 1959 would prove to be their last days of innocence, and their last taste of happiness before all possibility of hope was stripped from their lives.
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