Elwood Curtis's college dreams are shattered on a two-lane Florida highway. After bearing the brunt of an innocent mistake, he is sentenced to the afterlife of Nickel Academy, a brutal reform school deep in the Jim Crow South. He meets another ward, the ubiquitous Turner. The two black teenagers form an alliance: Turner offers basic survival advice, Elwood clings to his optimistic worldview. Against the backdrop of the burgeoning Civil Rights Movement, Elwood and Turner's existence seems very different from that of Martin Luther King Jr.'s Reverend The Polished Oratory. Despite Nickel's brutality, Elwood struggles to maintain his humanity, awakening a new vision in Turner.