The film tells the story of Duff Anderson, an African-American railroad worker in the early 1960s who tries to maintain his dignity in a small racist town near Birmingham, Alabama, after he marries the local preacher's daughter.

Although it was not widely seen upon release[3][4] due to difficulties in finding distribution, the film is now generally considered to be an important example of neorealistic American cinema.

In 1993, it was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

Duff Anderson works on a railroad section gang near Birmingham, Alabama, earning a good wage and living an itinerant life with his black co-workers.

On their night off, while the other men drink and visit a pool hall, Duff decides to walk into the nearby small town, and ends up at a church meeting featuring good food and lively gospel music.

Duff quits the section gang and takes a lower paying job at the local sawmill in order to have a stable home life.

Duff hates his preacher father-in-law, whom he sees as having sold out to the white people in return for social status and economic gain, and he hurtfully says to his wife, "You've never really been a nigger, living with them, in that house."

Soon, white customers who find Duff too proud for a black "boy" threaten to cause trouble if the boss keeps him on, and he loses that job as well.

As liberal Jews in the South, they were treated by whites as pariahs and warned that their food might be poisoned, causing them to relate strongly to the black families whom they met.

One morning in Mississippi, the plot of a young couple's struggles and the man's relationship with his father came to Roemer, and the script was written in six weeks as soon as they were back in New York City.

Charles Gordone was responsible for introducing the writers to some of the main talent, including Broadway actor Ivan Dixon, who went on to play the role of Staff Sergeant James Kinchloe on the CBS-TV sitcom Hogan's Heroes, and jazz great Abbey Lincoln.

[11] Track Listing A novelization of the film by noted pulp crime writer Jim Thompson was published in 1970 by Popular Library.