An imaginary Black servant on a turn-of-the-century plantation ends up permanently changing the owner's fortunes — despite being a figment of his imagination.

When an impoverished man shows up to a wealthy woman's door in dire need of help, she gives him ten dollars and tries to send him on his way. The man insists that he return the next day to thank her husband for the money, but she isn't quite sure if things are as they seem.

At the dawn of the Great Depression, an aged Black man returns to the Virginia plantation where he was born a slave 99 years ago. His arrival forces the now-destitute family who once owned him to confront their poverty and their racism alike.

After three years of being attacked with racism and hatred, a Black man decides to put his coworker in his place.

After a global nuclear war on Earth, white man rockets over to a community of Black expatriates living on Mars and begs them to take in the remaining survivors. A Black resident convinces his town they need to prevent racism by segregating any white newcomers, but his wife implores him to think of their common humanity.

A white woman talks to several Negro slaves who tell her stories about their personal lives. She learns about their partners and their and families.

When he discovers gold near his village, an African man dissatisfied with his lot in life develops new obsessions, flouts old responsibilities, and ultimately loses more than he gains.

The racism a Black, working-class couple faces at work during the Harlem Renaissance spills over into their relationship in violent ways.

In a town so small it can hardly be called a town, a black woman serves a rich white family until a series of horrific events causes the single joy in her life to vanish.

An Italian man recounts how his father came into money upon arriving in the United States but spent and then lost it all when his factory caught fire. Despite his Papa’s veritable financial ignorance and dangerous pride, the son asserts none of it was ever his father's fault.