The Reckoning

A powerful contemporary novel about an aspiring 12 year-old filmmaker whose world is turned upside down when his grandfather is slain in a senseless and racist act of violence. From the author of the award-winning memoir, Defiant: Growing Up in the Jim Crow South and co-editor of Recognize! An Anthology Honoring and Amplifying Black Life. Lamar can´t wait to start his filmmaking career like his idol Spike Lee. And leave behind his small town of Morton, Louisiana. But for now, Lamar has to learn how to be a filmmaker while getting to know his grandfather. When Gramps talks about his activism and Black history, Lamar doesn´t think much about it. Times have changed since the old Civil Rights days! Right? He has a white friend named Jeff who wants to be a filmmaker, too, even though Jeff´s parents never let him go to Lamar´s Black neighborhood. But there´s been progress in town. Right? Then Gramps is killed in a traffic altercation with a white man claiming self-defense. But the Black community knows better: Gramps is another victim of racial violence. Protesters demand justice. So does Lamar. But he is also determined to keep his grandfather´s legacy alive in the only way he knows how: recording a documentary about the fight against injustice. From the critically acclaimed author and the publisher of Just Us Books, Wade Hudson comes a riveting, timely, and deeply moving story about a young Black filmmaker whose eyes are opened to racial injustice and becomes inspired to follow in his grandfather´s activist footsteps.