DOWN BLACK TOWN takes a sociological and psychological look at racial tension at its peak in Chicago in 1968. The tone for the nation has been set by a year of assassinations, massacres in Vietnam and deadly protests at the Democratic National Convention which serve to keep the city at a permanent boiling point. The story takes place over a six month period in which Reverend Alvin Ward, a beacon of hope in the Cabrini Green housing projects, has discovered an insidious plot to burn down the low-income buildings in order to gentrify the neighborhood and allow white-owned bungalows to be built in their place. Ward holds the burden of knowledge and together with news hound Jack Kiskey, suspicion arises that the line of authority may run all the way to Mayor Daley's office. Matters are only made worse when white Professor of Sociology at the University of Chicago, Henry Lattimore, publishes a paper so blatantly racist it puts his family's lives in danger and sends Reverend Ward and the black community clamoring for a revolution. In the midst of it all is Javon Walker: a young man in 'The Green' who is about to enter his senior year of high school and just may be the first in his family to graduate. That is, if he can find his way in the world, and escape Cabrini Green alive.