Young Alex is sitting on a bench in front of the small general store in the poor African American community of Gee's Bend, Alabama. While waiting for his mother, he observes an old mule who has gotten into the garden across the road and is busily munching collard greens. An old woman joins him on the bench and tells Alex that the mule is named Belle, and she is allowed to eat all the collard greens she wants because she's a hero in Gee's Bend.

Miz Pettway goes on to explain a bit of the history of Gee's Bend. Martin Luther King Jr. visited the local Pleasant Grove Baptist Church and encouraged the people to cross the river on the ferry to register to vote in Camden. But when the white sheriff closed the ferry, the mules, including Belle, pulled wagonloads of people the long way around the river to vote. When people who dared to vote lost their jobs, the women began to sell quilts, for which they became famous all over the United States. When Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated, Belle and another mule named Ada pulled the wagon carrying his coffin through the streets of Atlanta.

The stylized, gently humorous, full color acrylic illustrations prove to be a fine technique to display this admirable animal.