Returning from the battlefields of Europe to his home in the Deep South, War World II hero Burley Small quickly finds that he's still refused service in the local restaurant. Devastated, he retreats to the solitude of his small farm, where the fates soon intervene with his life twofold: Burley befriends a marginalized, physically challenged boy newly arrived to the area and then, is monumentally tasked with stepping into the ring with Joe Louis, the Brown Bomber, the reigning World Heavyweight Boxing Champion.