None of them has ever read a book. None of them knows the story of Frederick Douglass. Mr. Jones, a dynamic young teacher at a contemporary urban high school, is determined to get the handful of inner-city kids who attend his after-school seminar to understand how important reading was to the young Frederick Douglass, who spent most of his youth as a slave along the Baltimore waterfront. Slave-owners, knowing that reading gave power, were determined to prevent slaves from learning to read. To masters, a slave who could read was a ruined slave. By the end of the play, Mr. Jones’s students have grasped the message. The play has five characters. The preferred gender distribution is four males and one female, but the gender distribution may be in any proportion depending on the actors available. However, the whole cast must be of African or Caribbean ancestry.