Nell Robinson, a beautiful, Africa-American 16-year-old girl, has been homeschooled her whole life, which has enabled her to travel all around South Carolina performing with her mother's Gospel singing group. They play at all the fancy, old country clubs of Charleston and surrounding Islands. It's made her family a great living, but has made her exactly no friends. That is, until she meets and falls in love with Monty Mills, the teenage son of Robert Mills, the biggest real estate developer in Charleston and lover of liberal causes. It's not until Nell and Monty come out with their relationship that the Robinsons and Mills have to confront and come to terms with their respective racism, which threatens not only Nell and Monty, but the entire community.

Patricia Williams Lessane is a native Chicagoan. Like many African-Americans, her late parents migrated to the north in the 1950s in search of opportunity and a better life. She is the youngest of their four children. In 2013, she was named "One of Charleston's 50 Most Progressive People" by Charlie Magazine. Dr. Williams Lessane and the Avery Research Center were recently awarded a National Endowment of the Arts grant to create and produce Julie Dash's current documentary project entitled Travel Notes of a Geechee Girl on the life and work of Gullah icon and writer, Vertamae Smart-Grovesnor. Dr. Williams Lessane is an Executive Board member of Collegium of African American Research (CAAR). She holds a BA in English from Fisk University, a MALS from Dartmouth College, and a PhD in Cultural Anthropology from University of Illinois at Chicago. She is the mother of two beautiful and precocious children.