The Herlihys are a working class family from Chicago whose three children take wildly divergent paths: Brian joins the Marines right out of High School and goes to Vietnam, Michael becomes involved in the civil rights movement and after campaigning for Bobby Kennedy and Eugene McCarthy becomes involved in radical politics, and Katie gets pregnant, moves to San Francisco and joins a hippie commune. Meanwhile, the Taylors are an African-American family living in the deep South. When Willie Taylor, a minister and civil rights organizer, is shot to death, his son Emmet moves to the city and eventually joins the Black Panthers, serving as a bodyguard for Fred Hampton.
Rod Steiger stars as a vigilante who with the aid of his helper, Isaac Hayes, captures men whom he considers evil and executes them in his homemade electric chair.
Washington plays a school principal in a tough inner city Los Angeles high school out to rid it of drugs, gangs, low moral of teachers, and restore educational values.
