Vividly rendering the sights, sounds, smells, and sensations of a bygone rural south, these closely connected stories revolve around the sometimes tragic lives of a black farming couple, Killdee and Rose Pinesett. When it first appeared in the 1920s, Green Thursday's unsentimental portrayal of African Americans was startlingly ahead of its time - enough so to inspire hate mail from white Southerners accusing the author, herself white, of betraying her race.

At the same time, however, Green Thursday was praised by reviewers and social observers from all quarters, including W. E. B. Du Bois, who called it "a beautiful book."