Historians, biographers and personal friends of Pulitzer Prize-winning author Margaret Mitchell reveal a complex woman who experienced profound identity shifts during her life and struggled with the two great issues of her day: the changing role of women and the liberation of African Americans.
Pat Conroy, an ambitious, slightly rebellious idealistic teacher accepts Bennington county, SC's school board superintendent's offer to teach the all-black kids of the pauper fishery community on Yamacrew Island. Staffless 'head' mistress Brown incarnates stupidity and blind rule obedience, her didactic skills consisting in scolding and spanking her students. Pat moves heaven and earth to motivate and educate, but after finally getting trough to pupils and parents is refused contract renewal by the arch-conservative authorities.
In 1962 in Montgomery, Alabama, State Attorney Richmond Flowers, Sr. is one of few willing to fight racial injustices even if it costs him his family's peace.
Will arrives for his last year at Military Academy, in the Deep South USA, in the 1960's. A black student, Pearce, has been accepted, for the first time and Will is asked to keep an eye out for the inevitable racism. The racists come in the form of The Ten, a secret group of the elite students. They want Pearce to leave on his own free will, but are prepared to torture him to make it 'his free will'. Will is forced to help Pearce and he is prepared to risk his own career to do so.
As he approaches manhood, Ben Meechum struggles to win the approval of his demanding alpha male father, an aggressively competitive, but frustrated marine pilot.
A young, white teacher is assigned to an isolated island off the coast of South Carolina populated mostly by poor black families. He finds that the basically illiterate, neglected children there know so little of the world outside their island.
