Elwood Curtis's college dream is shattered on a two-lane Florida highway. Bearing the brunt of an innocent misstep, he is sentenced to the underworld of Nickel Academy, a brutal reform school sunk deep in the Jim Crow South. He encounters another pupil, Turner, who has seen it all. The two black teenagers strike up an alliance: Turner gives them critical survival advice, and Elwood clings to his optimistic worldview. Set against the backdrop of the burgeoning Civil Rights Movement, Elwood and Turner's existence seems worlds away from that of the Rev. Fr. Martin Luther King's burnished oratorio. Despite Nickel's brutality, Elwood strives to retain his humanity, sparking a new vision for Turner.