In 1832, near Boston, a "charming and picturesque" little school for young girls welcomed about twenty boarders. Educating girls was a bit ridiculous and useless, people in the region thought. But all in all, not too bad, until the day the "charming school" announced that it would now welcome young girls... black.

Thirty years before the abolition of slavery, the fifteen or so young students of the Crandall school will be greeted by a wave of hostility of an insane magnitude. White America is afraid of some of its children.