Standing serves up an authentic memoir of a young Black boy growing up in a highly segregated environment: the heart of Dallas, Texas, during the era where segregation was the law of the land. Ernest McMillan came of age within an loving family and a nurturing community, virtually shielded from the outside—rampaging tides of white supremacy and a caste system squarely based on color. Dallas is often portrayed as a city in which the Civil Rights movement bypassed, but those claims are mythical in word and deed.

McMillan's emergence into manhood fighting for equal rights in the "Black Belt" South and his return to his birthplace to challenge the status quo of the white power structure brought him face to face with forces that were dead set on wiping him off the planet entirely, or imprisoning him in perpetuity.