Keene Davenport has called for a student walkout to protest his school’s annual “Slave Day” fundraiser, but it’s not exactly working. Shawn Greeley, the first African American student council president of Robert E. Lee High, continues to preside over the auctioning of student reps to serve as book-toters, chauffeurs, and lunch-fetchers for the day. So Keene chooses an alternative path of civil disobedience: Assuming that a day of degradation ought to open Shawn’s eyes, Keene decides to “buy” Shawn to be his slave, no matter what the cost—and launches a series of life-changing events in the process.