Wally Donovan is a bright, but unmotivated student who steps into the middle of the civil rights movement as a result of best friend, Gene Watson's enlightenment. The two volunteer as Freedom Workers for voter registration in 1965. Wanting to make a difference and finding a stint in law school unfulfilling, Wally gains his footing as an educator while forming ideas about politics and what the 1960s will mean historically. First You Hear Thunder combines humorous events in Wally's life with the ugliness of Jim Crow and the beauty of the spirits who fought for their rights. The story is interwoven with the details of a theory Wally develops along the way to make sense out of the dawning of the Age of Aquarius.