In the 1930's Noah is a teenager living in Red Bird, Oklahoma. Red Bird is described as an all-Black town. As Noah learns his family's history and witnesses the intimidation of another Red Bird resident who protests discriminatory voting laws, he recognizes that Red Bird's reality is a complex racial mixture and that reality includes him.

Noah leaves home for college, becomes a teacher, and marries his sweetheart, Leila. They teach in segregated schools until Brown v. Board of Education in 1954. The following year, school integration closes the high school where Noah works. He chooses a job offered at the newly integrated high school. Calamity to family and property follows. The next year, he and Leila return to the safety of segregated schools.

Seventeen years later, Noah is booted, again, from his segregated school. He chooses integration, again, and experiences a different troubling outcome.

After the second troubling integration, Noah reflects on the similarities of the Underground Railroad and the Integration Railroad. He resolves to be a conductor on the Integration Railroad for a short time longer; although he's aware that the train is not yet near the station.

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