A thinly veiled account of Judge Albion W. Tourgee's own career as a forceful advocate of civil rights was a bestseller in the 1880s and continues to occupy a place in the history of American literature. Judge Tourgee's reflections on the fundamental post- abolition problem of how to build a bridge from black emancipation to black equality provide readers with a clear picture of the South during the Reconstruction era. Presented as a work of fiction, this engaging and provocative work discusses Reconstruction and the many problems surrounding it.