A collection of ghost stories with African-American themes, designed to be told during the Dark Thirty--the half hour before sunset--when ghosts seem all too believable.
Describes the customs, recipes, poems, and songs used to celebrate Christmas in the big plantation houses and in the slave quarters just before the civil war.
In 1859 twelve-year-old Clotee, a house slave who must conceal the fact that she can read and write, records in her diary her experiences and her struggle to decide whether to escape to freedom.
Examines the lives and achievements of African-American scientists from colonial days to the present, including Benjamin Banneker, George Washington Carver, and several black astronauts.