The man meets a tall woman over six feet, whom he’s holding the door open for. Transfixed by her, the eventually follows her inside to a hall where hundreds of black people are talking among themselves. They are all currently at a lodge, in a Pennsylvania valley, which has been built and nurtured to hide black activists from white supremacist groups. Underneath, there are networks of tunnels which connect every building. Now here, the man thinks about how his grandmother told him stories about the Ku Klux Klan. Someone tells him that the lodge will be yet again another place of refuge in the future when white supremacist groups attack and black people must defend themselves. He asks him when that will be. He is told that the ancestors prophesied a future battle. When he asks who the ancestors are, he is told that he must listen to them and follow their way.

For weeks that the man has been here, he has been told that nonviolent resistance will not succeed in defending black people from white supremacy, and as such, he has gotten training on how to handle weapons. Everyone here is armed. In the hall, the tall woman talks about how the Black Panthers have been patrolling the streets of California, armed, to protect black communities, but a recent law, the Mulford Law, has prevented them from openly carrying their weapons. She reminds everyone that the ancestors predicted that a battle will happen in the future, wherein which white militias will be allowed to carry but black militias will not.

A woman slaps the man in the back of the head as he eyes another girl beside him. Afterward, she helps lead training with weapons and combat. Before he goes to his bunk, she tells him that she knows of him and hopes that he can listen to his ancestors for once, readying himself for what to come. At his bunk, he goes to sleep.

When he wakes, the man is in a lake, playing with two other guys. They race through the lake, but eventually, one of the guys goes to the white side of the lake, and the man and the other guy cannot follow him there. The man wants to save him, but the other guy leaves. When he gets close enough, rocks start getting thrown, and one hits the man in his face. He tries to swim back, but he keeps getting hit, and so does the guy. Unconscious, the guy is taken back to shore by the man, who is then pulled up by the other guy. Everyone asks if they’re alright.

When the man wakes, he is back in his bunk. He walks out, and his bunkmate tells him that he’s been out for two days. Later, in the hall, as he eats, he talks to the woman who tells him he went on a journey and experienced a part of his ancestors’ histories. She tells him that the lake incident preceded the Red Summer of 1919, a time when white mobs viciously attacked black people. The man says that those times were in the past, but the woman tells him that such brutality will still happen moving forward. She reminds him that he must learn his history and keep returning to the past until he does. At night, he resolves to get out of the lodge but tries to stay up, though soon enough, he falls asleep.

The man is in an alleyway with other black men, hiding, from the car of white men with shotguns. Armed, he follows them throughout the city which looks futuristic. During his time in the city, he has seen white men shoot at black men, and everyone has been using devices to record such incidents. He keeps following the group of black men, though when everyone splits up, he hesitates and gets caught by a white man who puts a gun in his face. Before he is killed, the other black men retaliate against the white men in an ambush. They then run into a house, where one man has a gunshot wound that the others are trying to patch up. Despite their efforts, he passes away.

The man wakes up, and the woman is beside him. He mutters the name of his grandmother. She explains to him that he’s been out for two days again. He recalls what happened in his dream and how he wishes he had a gun to defend himself and others with. The woman then reiterates that he’s right, that violence is necessary to defend black people from white supremacy, and that a forgotten part of the Red Summer of 1919 was that black soldiers fought back against the white mobs. The man says that his dream didn’t feel like 1919, however, to which she explains that he was actually in the future, around 2022, when the ancestors prophesied fighting will happen. The woman, then, asks him if he’s ready to take on his ancestor’s foresight and prepare to defend himself in the future. At the lodge, he joins the elders and knows he cannot let them down.