American Challenge

Throughout his years of growing up in American Fork, Utah, Owen Tenney has been subjected to hearing racist remarks about his aunt Naomi Tenney and her four children having black slaves among their ancestors. Now a Brigham Young University student in the mid-1950's, he has become so fed up with those comments that he intends to go out of state to earn his post-graduate degrees at universities where he expects to find nobody who is aware about Naomi and her children having a few drops of Bantu blood. Owen's pursuit of that intention produces for him unexpected consquences that include two failed courtships, a risk of him becoming a virtutal stranger to his little brother, Shule, and a falling-out with his eldest sister, Felicia, over his marrying an Episcopalian woman she does not approve of. As Owen reaps the consequences of his scheme during the period of 1954-1961, he sees America become beset with challenges that will set the stage for the stormy decade of the 1960's.