Although he is primarily known for his contributions to African education and for a controversial history on the destruction of black civilization, historian and sociologist Chancellor Williams began his literary career as a fiction writer. His distinction as an author of fiction lies in his skill at blending fact, interpretation, and conjecture in provocative narratives that explore the psychological motives of his characters.

Chancellor Williams, born in Bennettsville, South Carolina, on 22 December 1905, was the youngest of five children. His father had been a slave, and his mother was a cook, nurse, and evangelist. In Marlboro Academy, the small, rural elementary school that he attended, he was constantly asking questions about the great disparity between the social positions of blacks and whites; he was told that slavery was the cause of the low socioeconomic conditions of blacks. At the suggestion of his fifth grade teacher, Alice Crosson--whom he credits...