Seventeen-year-old Justyce McAllister walks through a wealthy neighborhood outside Atlanta, Georgia one night. He’s wearing a hooded sweatshirt and is on his way to find Melo, his ex-girlfriend. He knows Melo is drunk and wants to make sure she won’t drive, but she tells him to go away when he finds her. Still, he takes her keys and maneuvers her into the backseat. Just then, a police car drives up and a white officer named Tommy Castillo jumps out and grabs Justyce, handcuffing him and slamming his head against the car. Justyce tries to explain that he was only helping Melo, but Castillo punches him in the face and tells him not to “say shit,” calling him a “punk ass” who “couldn’t resist the pretty white girl who’d locked her keys in her car.”
Transitioning from the scene of Justyce’s arrest, Nic Stone gives readers a glimpse of Justyce’s diary, in which he writes a letter to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., explaining that he admires the way Dr. King lived his life. Justyce introduces himself to Dr. King, saying that he’s a scholarship student at Braselton Preparatory Academy, is ranked fourth in his class, is captain of the debate team, has high test scores, and believes he has a bright future “despite growing up in a ‘bad’ area.” Unfortunately, though, “none of that mattered” the night before, when Officer Castillo arrested him. Justyce was eventually let go, but he now feels unsettled, since he never thought he’d find himself in “this kind of situation.” In his diary, he writes about a young black boy named Shemar Carson, who was shot by a white police officer in Nevada even though he was unarmed.
Justyce returns to school the next week. A grand jury has recently failed to indict the officer who killed Shemar Carson, and Justyce can’t stop thinking about how his own run-in with the police could have easily been fatal, like Shemar’s. What’s more, Justyce learns that his best friend Manny’s cousin, Quan Banks, shot and killed Officer Castillo the other night and is now awaiting trial in juvenile detention.
In his Societal Evolution class, Justyce’s favorite teacher, Doc, asks the class if they think the United States has achieved racial equality. The only black people in the room are Doc, Justyce, Manny, who’s also close friends with an overly-confident white boy named Jared. Answering Doc’s question, Jared says that the United States has reached racial equality, claiming that people who complain about racism are “just being divisive.” Sarah-Jane (or SJ, a white girl who is Justyce’s partner on the debate team) takes issue with this statement, trying to show Jared that he only thinks racism is a thing of the past because he himself has never experienced it. Jared refutes this point, but SJ presses on, saying that ignoring inequality won’t make it go away.
After class, Justyce overhears Jared talking with Manny and their friends Blake, Tyler, and Kyle (who are white). Jared expresses his anger that Doc would even suggest the continued existence of racial inequality. He then waxes poetic about how he and his friends live in a “color-blind society,” and though Manny is hesitant to agree, the four white boys convince him to chant, “Equality!” with them. Hearing this enrages Justyce, who resents Manny for going along with Jared’s casual racism.
Jared later suggests that he and his friends should dress up as various stereotypes for Halloween. Although Justyce is skeptical, he decides to go along with the idea, agreeing to dress like a “thug” while Manny goes as the “token black guy.” Jared himself dresses as a “Yuppie/Politician.” What really bothers Justyce, though, is that Blake wears a seemingly authentic Ku Klux Klan outfit. Not wanting the others to call him overly “sensitive,” Justyce doesn’t say anything, so the group makes its way to a party. However, they encounter trouble when they run into a group of guys from Justyce’s neighborhood. These young men belong to a gang called the Black Jihad, and they take offense at Blake’s racist costume, immediately punching him in the face. A gang member named Trey then recognizes Justyce and disparages him for leaving the neighborhood to associate with people like Blake.
In the aftermath of the Halloween party, Justyce talks to SJ on the phone. They’ve always been close friends, but recently he has begun to develop stronger feelings for her, though he doesn’t know what to do with these feelings because he and Melo have an on-again-off-again relationship. Plus, he knows his mother would never approve of him dating a white girl. Still, he takes comfort in talking to her, especially because she seems to be one of the few people willing to recognize the subtle but significant racism swirling around him at Braselton Prep. When he learns several days after Halloween that he’s been accepted to Yale during the “early action” period, she’s the first person he calls.
The day after Justyce gets into Yale, Jared is clearly angry in Societal Evolution. Raising his hand, he asks Doc if they can talk about affirmative action, setting forth the argument that such practices “discriminate against members of the majority.” He then goes on to say that Justyce only got into Yale because he’s black, pointing out that he himself was deferred during “early action” even though he has better test scores. When Justyce asks how he knows he has better scores, it becomes clear that Jared has simply assumed this, so the two boys compare results and discover that they received more or less the same marks. Frustrated, Jared suggests that Justyce only got into Yale because Yale has to fill a “quota” of black students.
In the coming weeks, Justyce focuses on the upcoming debate tournament, spending the majority of his time with SJ. When Manny tries to convince him to date SJ, he refuses, insisting that his mother wouldn’t approve. However, he can’t conceal his feelings any longer when he and SJ triumphantly win the tournament. Backstage, he leans in to kiss her, but she backs away and leaves, avoiding him for the rest of the day and for the following weeks. During this time, yet another unarmed black teenager is shot and killed by a white police officer. Justyce is quite upset—so upset that he drinks heavily on the way to a party at Blake’s house that night. Manny tries to get him to pace himself, but he doesn’t listen. When they arrive at the party, Justyce notices that Blake’s family has minstrel decorations and other racist paraphernalia. Worse, Blake approaches Manny and Justyce and makes racist comments and slurs. When Justyce challenges him on this, he acts like it isn’t a big deal. At this point, Jared enters the conversation and jokingly warns Blake to watch out because Justyce is “from the hood.” Hearing this, Justyce hits him and starts a fight, dragging Manny into the skirmish. When Manny criticizes him for starting a fight, the two boys have an argument, and Justyce yells at him for always letting his white friends off the hook.
Several days later, both Manny and Jared are mysteriously absent from school. When Justyce returns to his dorm room, he finds Manny, and the two boys make up. Manny then tells him that he went to quit the basketball team the other day because he has never really liked basketball. The only reason he was on the team, he says, is because he thought everyone expected him to play, since he’s “the tall black kid at school.” When he went to the coach’s office, Jared was there, and he made a joke about how Manny couldn’t quit until “Massah set [him] free.” Losing his rage, Manny punched him.
The next weekend, Manny picks Justyce up from school to go hiking. However, Manny is in a bad mood because he’s just learned that Jared’s family is pressing charges against him for hitting Jared. Consequently, he doesn’t want to go hiking, so the two friends simply ride around in Manny’s Range Rover listening to hip-hop. At a traffic light, Justyce sees an angry white man glaring at them from an adjacent car. Nervous, Justyce turns down the music, but Manny turns it back up when the light changes. At the next stop, the man drives beside them and tells them to turn down the music. Instead, Manny turns it up, at which point the man calls them the n-word. “Hey, fuck you, man!” Manny shouts, and then the man pulls out a gun and fires shots into the cabin, killing Manny and injuring Justyce. It later emerges that the shooter’s name is Garrett Tison, an off-duty police officer.
After Manny’s funeral, his parents invite Justyce to the house and tell him that their nephew, Quan (who killed Officer Castillo), wants to see him. Quan grew up in the same neighborhood as Justyce, so Justyce agrees to see him. When he visits, Quan tells him that Garrett Tison was Officer Castillo’s partner. He also tells Justyce to join the Black Jihad because the leader, Martel, will give him guidance. “You need to get you a crew to roll with,” he says, giving Justyce Martel’s number.
In the coming days, Justyce tries to put the idea of calling Martel out of his mind. However, SJ is still ignoring him, and he has nobody to turn to, so he takes the bus to Martel’s house, where he meets with members of the Black Jihad before listening to Martel talk about the plight of black people in the United States. Everything Martel says makes sense, but then Justyce sees a sawed-off shotgun and remembers that joining the Black Jihad would mean entering a life of violence. At this moment, other members of the gang rush in and show Justyce a video clip of Blake talking about him on the news. Apparently, Blake has come forward to tell the nation that Justyce attacked him at his party, ultimately throwing his moral character into question and stoking the debate that is already raging across all media platforms about whether or not Justyce and Manny did something to provoke Officer Tison. Mortified, Justyce quickly leaves Martel’s house and goes straight to SJ’s home. Once they’re alone in her room, he tells her that he almost joined a gang, and she lets him weep on her shoulder. Finally, he tells her he has romantic feelings for her, and she confirms that she feels the same way. It’s the first time he’s felt happy or hopeful in a long time.
Meanwhile, the media continues to make absurd speculations about Justyce and Manny, calling them “thugs.” Around this time, members of the Black Jihad burn down Garrett Tison’s house, and several of them implicate Justyce as an accomplice, though investigators luckily don’t believe them. Shortly thereafter, Justyce has to testify against Tison in court. Tison’s attorney destabilizes him by bringing up the fact that he got drunk and hit Jared and Blake at Blake’s party. She also mentions that Justyce met with the Black Jihad, ending her questioning abruptly in a moment that makes Justyce look very bad. As a result, Tison is only found guilty of three of the four charges against him, leaving out the most serious: a felony murder charge. Several days after the trial, though, a group of prisoners murders Tison in jail.
Later that month, Justyce goes to Yale and is disappointed to be paired with a pretentious and subtly racist roommate. He and SJ are still dating, though SJ goes to Columbia. Jared is also at Yale, but Justyce never sees him. When he comes home for Christmas, though, he encounters Jared at Manny’s grave, and the two boys reconcile their differences. Jared expresses how badly he misses Manny, and he tells Justyce that he’s decided to become a civil rights lawyer. This pleases and impresses Justyce, who turns to his former foe and suggests that they hang out back at Yale.
