Meridian Hill

Meridian Hill grows up in a poor black family in a Southern community. In her early life, she doesn't have any idea of the greater issues of the world around her, but she does, from an early age, carry with her an overwhelming guilt. Meridian is trapped into an early marriage when she gets pregnant while in high school. She doesn't have any knowledge of men or sex, and she gets into this situation without thinking. She is unsatisfied and apathetic, and she takes to complaining (like her mother) as a way of coping with unhappiness. Only after her mother leaves her and Meridian becomes aware of the Civil Rights Movement does Meridian begin to realize that the world is larger than she had realized. After she gets involved in the movement, Meridian begins to see a way out of her current life, in the guise of...