Keanu Whiteriver grows up as an Assiniboin Indian on a reservation in Montana. He and his mother experience discrimination, but try to overcome it. Keanu is smart, active, a good student and a talented jazz musician. After high school and college in Havre, he gets a scholarship at Tulane University in New Orleans. Later, he becomes a lawyer in his home State and a legal adviser to the American Indian Movement.

the author is a retired German diplomat and former Undersecretary General of the UN. He had four assignments in the US, spent 17 years in the States and developed an intensive interest in the race relations there.