Mahatma Gandhi's successful experiments with nonviolence in defending oppressed Indians in South Africa in the early part of the 20th Century were put to good use in winning independence for India. In September 1959, a young black Nashville minister, James Lawson, who had studied in India, put what he had learned from Gandhi's example into action when he led student sit-ins at the lunch counters of Nashville's three downtown chain variety stores. The film comes full circle in surveying how Gandhi's principles were put to use to end apartheid in South Africa.