A nightclub singer refuses to "date" customers, so she's framed for the murder of her aunt.

Naomi, a light-skinned Black child, is abandoned by her mother and raised by the virtuous Mrs. Saunders. When the girl's fixation with whiteness turns her against her own race, she is sent to a convent. Hopelessly in love with her adoptive brother Jimmie, Naomi consents to marry his friend, but is repulsed by his darker skin and unrefined ways.

An undercover government agent on a case in Mississippi meets and falls in love with a beautiful young woman who's being menaced by a local crime boss.

Gangsters in Harlem make plans to commit a kidnapping.

After graduating from Harvard University, Peter Siner returns to his small Tennessee hometown, where he hopes to start a school for black children.