It is suggested that these sycamores are very old, having been planted by Native Americans prior to the arrival of European settlers and their stolen, enslaved Africans in what would become the state of Mississippi.

Jake Brigance, Carl Lee's former attorney, had gained much fame after the Hailey trial, as well as the respect of the black community and of many whites, but he has little to no money to show for it.

Jake receives a letter sent by Hubbard just before he killed himself, containing a new holographic will that renounces a will he filed the year before in which he leaves all his assets to his daughter and son as well as his grandchildren.

Further instructions stipulate that the will must not be filed for probate until after Hubbard's funeral so that his children, who rarely visited him during his bout with cancer, can put on a show not knowing that they will ultimately be left with nothing.

On the other hand, whites in Ford County are far from completely biased, as proven by the fact that voters had elected a black sheriff to two consecutive terms by an overwhelming majority.

Jake believes that if the race issue is toned down, the jury might rule for Lettie on the case's own merits, i.e. that Hubbard made his money himself and had the right to leave it to whoever he wanted and that he knew what he was doing when changing his will.

Then, Lettie's husband, with whom she is on bad terms, kills two teens while driving drunk, arousing great passions against the Lang family and hurting their chance of a fair trial.

The disbarred Lucien, Jake's friend and ex-partner who is an alcoholic but when sober still a sharp legal mind, goes to Alaska and manages to obtain Ancil's testimony.

His being a landowner was very much a rarity for a black person in the segregationist Deep South, and was greatly resented by racist whites in general and in particular by his neighbor, Cleon Hubbard, who laid a claim to Sylvester's land.

However, Sylvester had an unassailable title to the land, registered by the family during the Reconstruction period when federal troops, present in the South in the aftermath of the Civil War, upheld the rights of blacks.

His sons, Ancil and Seth, who did not share their father's prejudice and sometimes played with the black children, secretly observed this scene with great horror.

Subsequently, Cleon Hubbard intimidated Esther, Lettie's grandmother, who had just seen her husband being murdered with impunity, and forced her to sign away the family's ownership for a pittance – with a promise that she could continue residing on the property.

In the final scene, Ancil Hubbard arrives from Alaska and has an emotional meeting with Lettie and other protagonists under the sycamore tree, she asking him to let the past lie and look to a better future.