William Flair, a fourth-generation Mississippi planter, is accustomed to solving people's problems. It comes with the inheritance. He's not quite prepared for his latest challenge, however, which presents itself to him in the early days of the voting rights movement when black tenant farmers who have been evicted from their homes in Barksdale County for attempting to register for the vote take advantage of William's and his sister Beatrice's hospitality and, with assistance from a group of activists from the North who call themselves the Freedom Brigade, begin camping out in tents on the Flairs' Twin Pines Plantation.
Not long after the protest begins tension turns to tragedy when the body of Walker Wilson, a protest leader, is discovered at Twin Pines. He has been badly beaten, his throat slashed. Three suspects are arrested after Barksdale County's chief deputy sheriff obtains a confession from one of the three, a mentally challenged young black man who has heretofore been known for sitting outside the local hardware store, rocking back and forth and greeting customers with a toothy smile.
Barry Crossthwaite, the attorney who represents a group of planters in a civil rights case that has been brought against them because of the evictions, becomes convinced that the confession was coerced and decides to represent the murder suspects in their trial. The odds are against him in this community, where the white power structure, represented by the White Citizens Council, is entrenched and just wants to see this situation resolved so they can go back to growing cotton in peace.
William, who is also convinced of their innocence, joins forces with Jeremy Fite, another deputy sheriff who knows that the confession obtained by his colleague is bogus. With a young white female activist from the North named Summer Day, who has become involved romantically with the chief defendant, William and Jeremy hatch a plan to fake a jailbreak and spirit the defendants out of Barksdale County.
This creates a break in the trial and gives William and Jeremy time to catch the real killers, who turn out to be hired hands of a prominent local planter under whose direction they have been acting.
With the murder case solved and the White Citizens Council in retreat, residents of Tent City are emboldened. They march on the courthouse as a group and register to vote, believing that lasting change in the wind.

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