Ebony and Ivory is the story of Alice, a biracial woman, and the two cultures that she lives in during this story. Alice is the daughter of a black mother and white father in segregated South Carolina. She is raised by her mother and is ignored by her father who only helps with a few dollars when Alice as a child needs something. Her mother convinces Alice to move in with a man much older when she is only fourteen years old. Not knowing much about birth control, Alice proceeds to give birth to five children. Her husband, Big Loni, abandons her and runs off to Florida where he fathers more children and does nothing to help Alice financially with the raising of her five children. Alice works in the tobacco fields at five dollars a day. Sometimes she helps her stepfather make bootleg (moonshine) liquor and also selling pints of liquor. This is now the time that the civil rights movement blossoms and the United States Supreme Court rules that segregated schools are in violation of the Constitution and public schools throughout the United States must be desegregated. Alice understands that her life will now change with the coming of desegregation. She tells her mother the high hopes that she has for her future. Her mother believes that this hope of a better future is a wild and crazy dream and tries to discourage her daughter. The farmer, Mr. Eddie, for whom she works the tobacco fields, tries to make sexual advances on Alice. She rebuffs his advances and is forced to move out of the shack in which he allows her and her family to live. Alice's uncle (who is white and raises a family with Alice's black aunt and takes care of his black children) helps her and gives Alice and her family a nice place to live in with no obligations. She works in a factory and helps her stepfather again with making moonshine. Alice decides to go to New York to work and have her mother care for the children while she works in New York and sends money back to South Caroline. In New York, she works as a nanny and then as a barmaid. Sexual harassment of Alice continues. First a lesbian fails to hit on her and then a white doctor rapes her. She lands a job as a barmaid in a mafia bar and does well financially. Alice meets a white Jewish CPA who falls in love with her. They move in together and Alice's cooking impresses everyone and her and her boyfriend buy a trailer selling Italian sausages, hot dogs, and fries. The business blossoms and she is approached by a top executive of a corporation with many stores in the U.S. The offer is accepted and eventually, Alice is the owner of twenty kiosks attached to stores housing her "Carolina Cooking" stores. She continues to fight off sexual advances and now lives in a white culture. Her beauty and brains are big assets. Alice is now successful financially and intends to buy property in South Carolina. Her old nemesis, Mr. Eddie, now leads a group of white men intent on preventing the advancement of blacks and keeping blacks from buying land. Every time Alice returns to South Carolina, Mr. Eddie tries to grab Alice for his sexual desires. Alice rebuffs his advances and at the end of the story deceives Mr. Eddie, buys land from him without his knowing she is the buyer which she then reveals.