Ann Elizabeth Carter grew up in the segregated Atlanta of the 1920s and 1930s, part of the black privileged class, the much-loved daughter of a doctor -- and the granddaughter of a slave. She was a charming, confident young woman with a well-planned life ahead of her.

Then she upset all those plans when she fell in love. It was 1942 and Robert Metcalf was a member of the first black unit in the Army air Corps, stationed a Tuskegee, Alabama. For the first time she left her sheltered life in Atlanta to marry Rob. For the first time she had to learn what it really meant to be a black woman in the twentieth-century America.

During the decades that followed, Ann Elizabeth's life -- and her marriage -- were shaped by the changes that shook the country, that redefined it. During those decades she learned the truth of a lifetime. You have to guard the love you find -- and overcome the hate that finds you.