Johnny Redd grew up amidst the poverty of rural Tennessee, where graduating from high school was the greatest ambition many could hope for. But now he has the chance to change everything. Helped by friends of his murdered father, Johnny is on his way to Chicago for a job as a right-hand man in the national labor movement. In escaping from poverty, will he also have to abandon morality, and give up on his hope to make things better for the friends and family he left behind?