In June of 1936, Step Johnson of Savannah, Georgia, a brilliant black odd-jobs man, part-time thug, full-time womanizer, is a cynical rebel with numerous causes, usually negative. His sweet and unselfish girlfriend, twenty-year-old Gancy Miller, "deserts" him to care for her ill sister, Sweet Annie, in Lourdes, called Lordies, in the next state. Angry as well as desolate, he hitchhikes after her. Gancy, rebounded, is now involved with Lonnie Milsaps, a white Lourdes barber and gun-dealing entrepreneur whose twin fixations are hiding his misalliance and frantically chasing a franchise for the sensational new Royal Crown Colas.
Step's nightmarish pilgrim's progress through emotional and physical abuse inspires soul searching that is long overdue. Persecution and introspection continue in Lordies, where he's blackjacked for deliberately taking a white bus seat. He also acquires an unwarranted and undesired, yet unshakable, reputation for miracle-working. Lordies' black establishment resents Step as a rival. White folk loathe him as an agitator, especially the power hungry chief of police, Hershel Laycock.
Step becomes the reluctant, yet committed, leader of a tragically isolated civil rights awakening. Its unexpected climax is both deadly and inspiring.