She tells of the major events of her life from the time she was a young slave girl in the American South at the end of the Civil War.

Jane and other characters also mention Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington, Jackie Robinson, Fred Shuttlesworth, Rosa Parks, and others.

Corporal Brown's voice give these historical meditations a kind of "setting the record straight" mood to the storytelling presented in this novel.

It shows how the patrollers and other vigilante groups through violence and terror curtailed the physical and educational mobility of African Americans in the south.

At the end of the chapter "A Flicker of Light; And Again Darkness", Miss Jane remarks of Colonel Dye's plantation, "It was slavery again, all right".

The movie was directed by John Korty; the screenplay was written by Tracy Keenan Wynn and executive produced by Roger Gimbel.

The film was shot in Baton Rouge, Louisiana[5] and was notable for its use of very realistic special effects makeup by Stan Winston and Rick Baker for the lead character, who is shown from ages 23 to 110.

The film, like the book, also suggests a comparison between the contemporary moment of the Civil Rights Movement and the plight of African Americans at various points in history.

In fact after the first couple of pages the interviewer completely falls out of the frame of the story though he continues to appear between flashbacks in the film.

The film also opens with the book's final story about Jimmy coming to an almost 110-years-old Miss Jane to ask for her participation in a Civil Rights demonstration.