The Color of a Lie

The Color of a Lie (2024) is a young adult historical fiction thriller by Kim Johnson. Johnson is a social justice activist and the author of two novels for young adults, This Is My America (2020) and Invisible Son (2023), that examine the legacies of enslavement and systemic anti-Black racism in the United States.

The novel takes place in Levittown, Pennsylvania, in 1955. Calvin Greene’s family, who is Black and passing as white, moves to Levittown after a white mob in Chicago killed his sister, Charlotte, due to his brother’s civil rights organizing. Calvin enrolls at the all-white Heritage High and works for Vernon Realty, whose owner, Mr. Vernon, conspires with developers to keep Levittown redlined. Calvin slowly learns about Vernon Realty’s unethical practices and works with new Black friends to integrate Heritage High. The novel explores themes of Expectations and Reality of the American Dream in the Post-War Period, Racial and Social Inequality in Midcentury America, and The Psychological Impact of Passing.

This guide refers to the Random House Children’s Books 2024 hardback edition.

Content Warning: The source material and guide feature depictions of racism, graphic violence, death, bullying, and anti-gay bias. In particular, the text interrogates anti-Black racism in the Jim Crow era of the United States and the legacy of enslavement.

Plot Summary

Calvin Greene’s family moves to Levittown, Pennsylvania, a sundown town. Mr. Vernon, a prominent realtor, sells them a house in an all-white development. They are Black and “passing” as white, which leaves Calvin conflicted. They left Chicago after a white mob firebombed their house and killed Calvin’s sister, Charlotte, because of their brother, Robert’s, civil rights organizing. Calvin misses Robert, who was disowned after these events, and his best friend, Ray. Robert lives nearby and runs Sojourner Music School.

Calvin meets the neighbors, Mary Freeman and Ben Smith, and applies to work at Vernon Realty. At a party, he meets Darren, a racist classmate. At Heritage High, Ben introduces Calvin to Alex Washington. Calvin is interested in Alex’s demeanor and olive skin.

Calvin doesn’t like the attention Mary gives him. When he overhears Ben discussing a football game, he learns where Sojourner is located. Later, he bicycles there to see Robert. Calvin sees a beautiful girl named Lily Baker, and he meets and bonds with Eugene and Harry, who are brothers. He talks about the stress of passing and learns that Harry’s bicycle was recently stolen. Its description matches the one Ben was riding.

The next week, Lily starts at Heritage. Mr. Vernon and his friends protest her enrollment. Calvin learns about Vernon’s influence regarding who can stay in Levittown and that a Black family, the Sampsons, used to live in his house. They were harassed until Mrs. Sampson was killed, and Mr. Sampson left.

After school, Calvin follows Lily home to make sure she is safe. He knows that she can tell he is passing. Later, while downtown with Ben and Alex, he follows Lily into a store and speaks to her. Ben starts harassing Lily, and Calvin distracts him so that she can escape. During trips to Sojourner, Calvin feels like himself. At Heritage, he sees Darren laughing at a picture of Emmett Till’s open casket.

Calvin and Lily bond over their grief, and their romantic relationship becomes mutual. After school, Darren attacks Lily, and Calvin fights him. Later, Mary asks why Calvin is injured, and he deflects. He tells his parents how he got hurt, and his father forbids Calvin from seeing Lily. Calvin thinks that his father is “ashamed” of being Black.

At Sojourner, Calvin attends a Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) meeting. Eugene wants Calvin to use his passing privilege to drive him and Harry to a Virginia meeting. The CORE members want to integrate Heritage and the nearby community of Concord Park; Calvin agrees to spy for them at Vernon Realty.

Calvin works with a white woman, Sharon, and a Black woman, Barbara. The company hired Barbara so that Vernon and Sharon wouldn’t have to work with Black families. Black families can’t purchase in Levittown, but they can buy more expensive houses outside town. Calvin sees Vernon’s documents that refer to a plan to stop integration at Heritage. He learns that Alex’s father was a friend of the Sampsons and tried to fight Vernon about their right to stay in Levittown.

Another day, Calvin asks Barbara questions about Vernon’s housing practices. He sneaks into Vernon’s locked cabinets and finds strategies to stop housing and educational integration, including when to turn to violence to prevent both. He sees files on Alex’s family; Vernon was investigating whether they were Jewish.

At school, Darren harasses Lily. Even sympathetic teachers think that integration will never happen and that Lily should leave. She stops attending school. Barbara looks the other way while Calvin goes through Vernon’s locked files, stealing a file about the Sampsons. Calvin realizes that local organizations are working together to keep Levittown segregated. Vernon later fires Barbara, so no Black families are sold houses within Heritage’s district.

Calvin gets to know Alex more, who is different from other Levittown teens. Unbeknownst to Calvin, Ben invited Mary to the Heritage dance as Calvin’s date. Mary tries to become romantic with Calvin, but he declines. She accuses him of having a relationship with Lily, and he leaves. He steals back Harry’s bike from Ben and goes to Sojourner, which is having a dance. He dances with Lily and leaves for Virginia before dawn, using his passing to help him drive safely.

At the Virginia meeting, they share strategies with local organizers. They meet Thurgood Marshall, who tells them to contact him about the documents that Calvin found about illegal housing practices. Several white men discover the meeting. Calvin uses his passing to trick the men and get everyone to safety. He, Eugene, and Harry are late leaving Virginia, and their car breaks down near sundown. Calvin gets new spark plugs, leaving the brothers hiding in the car. When he gets back, a policeman is there. He takes all three into custody, as they are in a sundown town. The policeman beats Calvin. They are discharged the next morning, and Calvin tells his parents that he’s hurt from playing rough football.

Calvin’s next task is to get school registration papers from the school board and give them to Harry. He loses track of time with Lily and is late to meet Harry. When he kisses Lily goodbye, Alex and Ben drive by and see. Ben is outraged. They get into a fight, and Calvin tells them he is Black. He begs them not to tell anyone, and Alex swears they won’t. Calvin decides to get the forms the next day.

The next morning, Vernon and his men are outside the school board with bats. Calvin goes to Sojourner to tell them that he can’t get the forms and learns that Harry has been missing since last night. Thanksgiving break goes by, and Harry is still missing. A three-day blizzard passes, and he’s still missing. When Calvin returns to work after the storm, Vernon says that his files have been stolen.

The theft leads to a mob’s formation. Calvin warns Lily. People set off explosions at her house, and Calvin uses a back road to rescue her, her mother, and her sister. He takes them to his house, where his mother shelters them. He warns Robert, who takes his students into tunnels from when the building was an Underground Railroad safehouse. Calvin thinks that Darren, Ben, and Alex are part of the mob approaching Sojourner. Alex is there to stop Darren, who wants to burn the building down.

They see Lily, and Darren chases her. While searching for Lily, Calvin finds Harry locked in a church in the woods on the other side of the caved-in tunnel. Calvin promises to come back. Outside, Darren attacks Lily. Eugene tackles Darren, who stabs him before slipping, hitting his head, and dying. Alex, Ben, and Eugene carry Darren’s body to the church and hide him where Harry was locked in. Calvin learns that Darren saw Harry riding his bike, which Darren stole once before for Ben. Darren and Ben chased Harry into the woods; Ben didn’t realize that Darren had locked Harry in the basement until he heard from Alex that someone was missing. Ben came with Darren to look for Harry, repentant of his behavior.

They plan to keep Darren’s death secret. James, Robert’s boyfriend, takes Harry and Eugene to the hospital. Alex calls Calvin’s father for help, and he shelters Lily’s family, James, and Robert. After several days, no mob has formed to oust them, but Calvin’s father thinks it’s imminent. Waiting, they learn of the Montgomery Bus Boycott’s start, amazed. Calvin’s father confesses that he was friends with the Sampsons, was investigating what happened to them, and was using his passing to help integrate Concord Park. Calvin gives intel from Vernon Realty and Thurgood Marshall to his father. Lily’s family gets to safety. Calvin’s family returns to Chicago, but Robert stays behind to run Sojourner.

Two years later, Calvin and Eugene reunite as roommates at Morehouse College; Lily starts at nearby Spelman College.