Peter Fallow, a has-been, alcoholic journalist for the tabloid "City Light", is soon given the opportunity of a lifetime when he is persuaded to write a series of articles about Henry Lamb, a black youth who has allegedly been the victim of a hit and run by a wealthy white driver. Fallow cynically tolerates the manipulations of Reverend Bacon, a Harlem religious and political leader who sees the hospitalized youth as a "projects success story gone wrong." Fallow's series of articles on the matter ignites a series of protests and media coverage of the Lamb case.