In Washington, D.C., Emma C. Tremaine remembers her past: An African American, Emma teaches small children of her race at an open-air school and hopes one day to have a real college there. Charlie Winter, who cannot read, is brought to the school by police for stealing a pair of shoes. The police are deferential to Sarah Miller Spriggs, a young white woman who is editor of the school paper, and leave Charlie in her care. Charlie is critical of Sarah because her parents have money, and when Emma tries to talk to him, he lashes out that he does not want people to be nice to him and desires revenge because his mother died from not getting enough to eat. Charlie is attracted, though, to Emma's daughter Julie. With the financial backing of Sarah's parents, Emma's dream of a college becomes a reality in ten years, and Charlie and Julie graduate. After the ceremony, Blaney, a white Communist, explains to Charlie and Julie that he is working to bring an end to exploitation. As Emma becomes a voice for education throughout the country, Julie, who has to take care of the college, berates her mother for her seemingly endless rounds of banquets and speeches. When Charlie tells Emma that he and Julie are getting married, and that Blaney, who has been recruiting other students, will set them up in Washington, Emma is angered, but gives them her blessing. When a number of years later Emma is chosen as a guest speaker at the Washington Ladies' Literary Club, the first of her race to be invited, Sarah, now a top reporter, brags she can get a scoop. Some of the club members, including Sarah's mother, argue that inviting Emma is a mistake. When she arrives, there is some uneasiness and snubbing, until Emma relates a lesson she learned from her mother: there is always room for one more. Even though she grew up in a three-room shack in a family of sixteen, her mother always made room for friends and neighbors. She then reveals she has received a letter from the President of the United States, who requests that she serve on the National Advisory Board. Back at the college, Emma overhears Charlie criticize her philosophy to a group of students, whom he encourages to join him in a mass rally. Emma refuses to allow it, reminding them of Lincoln's ideal of malice toward none and charity toward all. When the students agree with Charlie, Emma, distraught, prays for God to show her the answer. She then admonishes Julie and Charlie, telling them not to come back until they feel differently. During the next eight years, life is difficult for Julie, who learns that Charlie has become a trained revolutionary. When Sarah's chief sends her to cover a Moral Re-Armament conference on Mackinac Island, Michigan, she invites Emma to join her. At the conference, top-level people from all over the world, representing government, labor and business, try to solve world issues by understanding the roots of human nature. Julie, to whom Emma has not spoken for years, is at the conference also. She tells her mother that when Blaney moved in with her and Charlie, she moved out. Sarah explains to Emma that she felt the need for wisdom greater than her own when she realized that a breakdown in civilization was occurring. Emma agrees that, despite her faith in education, there has been a breakdown in the morals of youth, of which Blaney and thousands like him take advantage. Sarah believes that only an ideology superior to Blaney's can work. Moral Re-Armament, she tells Emma, advises that one should begin with one's self to correct problems in the world. Sarah encourages Emma to write her thoughts about herself, and Emma complies, then reads them to Sarah: that she is full of self-importance and too busy; that she failed Julie; and that she never gave Charlie a purpose big enough for which to live and thus let Blaney take over his life. Meanwhile, although Blaney warns Charlie to forget Julie, Charlie goes to see her at the conference, where he sees participants of all races and peoples. Sarah's mother, who earlier snubbed Emma because of racism, rises out of her wheelchair and confesses that generations have been kept in bondage because of her type of pride. She further declares that she used tolerance and patronage as a balm, and confesses to Emma that in her heart, she refused to meet her as a woman. She asks Emma's forgiveness and they cry together. Emma confesses having an ache still in her heart for a boy she once loved like a son, whom she failed. Charlie listens to voices from his past and realizes that he has never really believed that man is shaped by his economic environment. He feels that if human nature can be changed, as Moral Re-Armament affirms, it is the most revolutionary fact in history and makes Blaney's ideas seem small and outdated. He takes the arms of Emma and Julie and tells them of his decision to stay. People from the conference walk together, and Emma explains that remaking the world by being a part of the great unifying force is the crowning experience of her life.