Five young students volunteer to aid in registering Negro voters in Lovingboro, Mississippi. In an attempt to intimidate the civil rights workers, Sheriff Engstrom has one of the workers beaten up. When this fails to work, he tries to frighten three of the workers into returning to the North. One of the workers, Bernie Samuelson, is accidentally killed, and the sheriff decides that he must also kill Tyrone Carver and Carol Byrd, witnesses to the crime. Carver is killed, and the sheriff instructs the Loving brothers to bury the men and dispose of Carol. She persuades the Loving brothers to spare her in return for a ransom to be paid by her brother Dick, a Hollywood actor. Her brother arrives with the money, and he entertains himself with a black prostitute while he awaits his sister. Luther Barnes, a black civil rights worker, decides to try to find Carol on his own. In the meantime, Phil Loving sends his brother Andy to collect the ransom. Luther Barnes stumbles on the shack where Carol is held captive, and he battles Andy, who is trying to rape her. Carol and Luther flee and spend the night huddled in a thicket. The two are found by a posse, and Luther is castrated and killed while Carol watches, helpless. Carol is released, and she tells her story, causing the FBI to press charges against the sheriff. Although the prosecution fails, it stirs the Negro community into demonstrating for their rights.