Eddie Warmack, an African American jazz musician, is released from prison for the killing of a white gangster. Not willing to play for the mobsters who control the music industry, including clubs and recording studios, Warmack searches for his mentor and grandfather, the legendary jazz musician Poppa Harris.

Dorothy is a poor black woman. Her husband is put in jail for no observable reason, and she is pregnant with a second child. The government threatens to take away her welfare if she does not get an abortion.

The film opens in 1945 with a young boy playing in his Chicago neighborhood, and then follows the adult Jita-Hadi as a returning Marine with heightened political consciousness.