Terrence Butler, Mississippi born and raised, is not really the nonviolent type, especially when it comes to this whole civil rights foolishness. Why talk when fighting's faster? In the summer of 1964, nineteen-year-old Terrence faces a crossroads: continue the expense of college or stay home to work for pennies sharecropping his folks' farm. When he ends up on the bad side of Earl Flynn, a one-time childhood friend turned deputy sheriff, his activist cousin offers him a third choice: working for a summer voting drive. Terrence reluctantly agrees.

During training, Terrence meets Daniel Fogel, a white boy from California, and immediately dismisses him as an idealistic fool. Over a week of classes and secret trysts, the two of them somehow manage to fall in love. The long, hot summer's progress is marred by brutality and murder, but more dangerous to Terrence is Deputy Flynn. He never stopped gunning for Terrence, and now he's added Daniel to his sights. On a dark country road in the dead of night, Terrence may find it impossible to stick to nonviolence. Some sacrifices are just too big.