In March 1931, two white women stepped from a box car in Paint Rock, Alabama to make a shocking accusation: they had been raped by nine black teenagers on the train. So began one of the most significant legal fights of the 20th century. The trial of the nine falsely accused teens would draw North and South into their sharpest conflict since the Civil War, yield two momentous Supreme Court decisions and give birth to the civil rights movement.

A tragic true story of nine black men who were pulled off an Alabama freight train and accused of raping two young white women, quickly tried, and sentenced to the electric chair. Forcing an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, a lone man defends them.