During Jim Crow America, Arm Carey is a black man taking care of a senile white judge. When the white judge dies from natural causes, Carey is afraid that white people will accuse him of murder. With the help of his friend, Carey buries the judge in a black-only cemetery. When the judge is pronounced missing, the police interrogate Carey's friend, and the friend confesses what happened. Carey goes to his lawyer, Major Tipton, for help, and Tipton lets him hide at his place. Meanwhile, the newspaper releases an edition of what happened to the judge's dead body, and a mob of violent, angry white people forms. They go to the black-only cemetery and desecrate it to find the judge's body. The scene is horrific, and, in the end, the mob never finds the judge's body. Later, Tipton reveals that Carey paid him a lot of money to help him escape the town.