In an integrating society, an unprejudiced son and his racist mother encounter a Black family on a bus, forcing the mother to grapple with her racist sentiments.

When the decision to build a new integrated school falls into the hands of an elderly woman, a small Tennessee town grows desperate to escape the control of her family, which has historically worked to prohibit progress and change.

Two women are both brought together and separated by race throughout the course of their lives in this chronicle of a complicated friendship.