The novel opens at the 1968 Olympics in Mexico, as runner Tommie Smith prepares for an event. Smith narrates how he calmed himself, both afraid and determined. He had pulled a muscle during the semifinals and was working through the pain. When he suffered the injury, he initially wondered if the people who had been threatening him had succeeded, but then he realized that there was no blood. In the final race, he knew there would be backlash for what he planned to do.

The starting gun fires, and Smith takes off. He thinks only about his speed and whether he would survive “a hail of bullets” (5).

The narrative jumps to Acworth, Texas, a small town with a population of 20. Smith recalls how his father would take him fishing. The fish were always so fast, moving through his fingers. Smith describes how he was the seventh of twelve children. He came from a poor but close-knit family. Growing up, they didn’t have heat or air conditioning. They’d gather wood to keep warm.

As a child, Tommie was always moving, though he slowed down near his “Mulla,” his mother.