The story begins on a Saturday afternoon at the peaceful Civil Rights demonstration led by well-known activist Roland Childs. Childs’ sons, Sam and Stick, have been in attendance all day but decide to leave before their father finishes speaking. On their way out of the crowd, Sam and Stick encounter a group of white men beating protestors at the edge of the crowd. Sam freezes, but Stick intervenes and pulls one of the white men off a protestor. The white man then begins to fight Stick and hits him in the face with a broken bottle just as Sam sees the police arriving.

Sam leads Stick away from the spot where the police are headed, and when they get far enough away to rest, they realize that Stick needs to go to the hospital. When Sam and Stick arrive at the hospital, the nurse directs them to the waiting room after she realizes they had been protesting. Sam continues to explain the seriousness of Stick’s injury, and a younger nurse ignores the older nurse’s direction and takes Stick for treatment. The older nurse makes Sam stay with her and fill out paperwork. Sam leaves to go the bathroom, and his father and mother, Marjorie Childs, find him in the hallway.