Darktown Series

Responding to pressure from on high, the Atlanta Police Department is forced to hire its first black officers. It's a victory of sorts, though the newly minted policemen are met with deep hostility by their white peers, and their authority is limited: They can't arrest a suspect unless a white officer is present; they can't drive squad cars; they can't even enter the station through the front door.

Officer Denny Rakestraw, "Negro officers" Lucius Boggs and Tommy Smith, and Sergeant McInnis have their hands full in an overcrowded and rapidly changing Atlanta. It's 1950, and color lines are shifting and racial tensions are simmering. Black families - including Smith's sister and brother-in-law - are moving into Rake's formerly all-white neighborhood, leading some residents to raise money to buy them out while others advocate a more violent solution.

It's 1955 and ex-cop Tommy Smith is working as a crime writer for the only daily black newspaper in America when his boss, a prominent publisher with a politically complex past, turns up murdered, a group of corrupt white cops takes the opportunity to make sure Smith is prime suspect. To clear his name, Smith will need to enlist the help of his old boss, the resilient Sergeant McInnis - who has logged seven difficult years as the only white cop in a black precinct.