A neighborhood on Mars buzzes with the news that a white man will be arriving in a rocket, the first white man Hattie Johnson’s children have ever seen. The neighbors clamor to greet him, but Willie Johnson, livid with the memory of his parents’ murders at the hands of white folk, tells the community to come armed with guns and rope. Interrupting the picnics and the festive atmosphere, Willie announces his intent to segregate and subjugate any white people who come to live on their planet. He rallies the town and sends delegations off to paint signs and enforce new segregation practices all over town. The shoe’s on the other foot now, he says, when the mayor questions this sudden reversal of mistreatment. When the white man emerges, old and defeated, he recounts brutal stupidity with which every city on earth has been bombed and burned to dust. Yes, every hometown, every well-known block, every shop in Harlem. The white man offers subjugation and servitude in exchange for the mercy of the Black community, but Hattie sees beyond that. She asks about the oak tree and the hill atop which Willie’s father was hung and shot, and the white man shows them proof of its destruction on a photographic map of Earth. She asks about her mother’s washing place – he proffers pictures of every place they ask about, looks up the fate of every acquaintance, stirs the collective memory of the once-green earth. Willie realizes there is nothing on Earth left to love or to hate, and he abandons his plan. With Hattie in agreeance, the signs come down, the ropes fall, and an era beyond hatred just might be possible.