An African-American man working at a slaughterhouse in the Watts area of Los Angeles leads a dissatisfied and listless existence.

Charlie Banks, chronically unemployed, struggles to find dignity and a meaning for life in the impoverished Los Angeles neighborhood of Watts.

The inhabitants of a deteriorating section of 1968 Junction City, Kansas known as "Junk City" bemoan their existence and revel at the history of their neighborhood during its 1940's heydays when legendary jazz musicians regularly played its clubs. In 1968, the area has diminished to strip clubs and juke joints inhabited by Vietnam War draftees that pass through from nearby Fort Riley. Heads of the group include a wino who lost a leg in WWII, a taxi dispatcher, a saloon owner, and a crazed bag lady. The younger generation is represented by a young prostitute who is trying to get off the streets, but is forced to continue to work by a no-good boy friend and the need to feed her baby. Martin Sheen also appears as a white minister who prefers the people in the area over his own congregation.

In 1902, an African-American family living on a sea island off the coast of South Carolina prepares to move to the North.