Black Arts Movement Series

Kristin Hunter Lattany

When a new highway is planned to cut through the heart of Lakestown—an all-black community in 1965—its residents face the threat of displacement and the slow erasure of everything they’ve built. As the route is pushed through by powerful outsiders, Lakestown’s citizens draw strength from their Underground, turning fear into collective action and strategy. Blending humor with a tough-minded realism, this novel explores resistance, community solidarity, and the moral stakes of survival under systemic pressure. With its vivid character work and socially conscious storytelling, it captures how ordinary people organize, endure, and fight back when progress is used as a weapon.