SYNOPSIS

As a married black couple, Doris and Shaun begin living their American dream in the heart of the racist South in the 1960s. Shaun, a successful financier, and Doris, an educator, have two children together. Like many married couples, they find it tough to juggle their career and family life, while also confronting southern culture’s pervasive racism.
In time, Doris suspects her husband could be having an affair. He’s restless; distant. Worse, she fears the dalliance may be with a white woman, a race Doris despises as much as blacks are despised by them. Her suspicions prove to be on target. Shaun has a one-night fling with Kathleen, a white woman, which unbeknownst to him, results in the birth of a child.
 

Both he and Doris learn of the child three years later, but before Doris can confront her husband, she finds Kathleen dead. The only witness is Shaun and Kathleen’s traumatized young daughter, Shauna, who doesn’t remember what happened, but suspects Doris is the killer.
Because of Doris’s political aspirations, she and Shaun adopt Shauna after the tragedy. But as Shauna grows up, her presence in the home causes family heartache. She becomes a hostile, aggressive, and troubled child. She wreaks havoc on the family and her actions stem partly from her belief that Doris killed her mother, and partly because of Doris’s resentment of her.
 

Shauna finally leaves Atlanta to attend college in Los Angeles, where she tries to deal with her hate and anger. But still, the question lingers: Who killed her mother?  When a videotape surfaces and the truth is revealed,  Shauna is asked to return to Atlanta where she learns the
truth, and while there, she is reunited with both sides of her family.