Poor black sharecroppers band together to build a school for their children.

The oldest son of a loving and strong family of black sharecroppers comes of age in the Depression-era South after his father is imprisoned for stealing food.

After several locals are viciously murdered, a Louisiana sheriff starts to suspect he may be dealing with a werewolf.

In February, 1962, as the civil rights movement reaches Bayonne, Louisiana, a New York journalist arrives to interview Jane Pittman, who has just turned 110. She tells him her story dating back to her earliest memories before slavery ended. In between the chapters of her life, the present-day struggles of Blacks in Bayonne, urged on by Jimmy, are dramatized.