[4] While practicing piano, Alvin looks out his window to see Louise being beaten by Spike, and he rescues her and then brings her back to Lucretia’s house.

Spike has some desire to allow his daughter to escape the kind of life he is stuck in, but he is unable to change any of his actions without being sucked into his old lifestyle by the alcohol supplied by Eddie.

Alvin proposes to Louise after rescuing her again from the altercation, claiming that she wouldn’t need to worry about harm if they were married.

Louise laments in life and finds a letter from Alvin’s mother urging him to marry another woman who is “part of our set,” referring to the same level in social stratification.

Alvin escapes prison by filing the bars in his cell and re-establishes himself as a music instructor with a false name.

Alvin falls in love with his student, Alice, but “lives a daily lie” because he has hidden the secrets of his past.

With the new emergence of a black bourgeois class, the film provides “a manual for those on the make,” embodied in Alvin Hilliard, but also “a caution to the weak willed who might be diverted from success by urban temptations.” [5] For example, Louise is tempted by the opportunity of a “big break” as a cabaret singer, and her father is unable to resist alcohol.

The message is not so straightforward, and we see those who strive for more ending up hurting those they care about and deserting those less fortunate of the same race by the desire for success.

A common theme throughout the film is the conflict between the higher and lower classes and their roles in the degradation of black women.

On all Library of Congress VHS/DVD prints, The Scar of Shame is accompanied by a 1923 short film, in which Noble Sissle sings jazz tunes while Eubie Blake plays the melody on the piano.