Bailey-Williams, Nicole

Song Byrd, raised in poverty by her single mother, longs to escape from her outsider status in her family and neighborhood, but guilt keeps her from truly enjoying life after her mother is killed and she goes to live with her father in much improved circumstances.

Philadelphia college student Shanna Washington, daughter of an African-American alcoholic and a white socialite, searches for something to heal her emotional wounds from childhood and enters into a damaging relationship with an ambitious track star of mixed race.