An indifferent speech professor doing hack work in an urban college suddenly finds herself challenged by a ghetto youth with an intense desire to get a good education in this issue-oriented drama.

The hard-boiled saga of hair-trigger cop Lieutenant Mike Torello and his obsessive pursuit of ruthless gangster Ray Luca.

During World War I, a poor black Southerner travels north to Chicago to get work in the city's slaughterhouses, where he becomes embroiled in the organized labor movement.