In 1966 in Montgomery, Alabama 16-year-old MARK LAWSON is a blue-eyed blonde who discovers he is black. He loves baseball and wants to win the state championship.

He is from a poor family and needs to get an after school job to support his widowed and ailing mother. She is white and he thinks his late father was too because he and his sister were raised as white. Mark’s nemesis is BILLY JUSTICE, they are opposed because Billy hates blacks and Mark was raised differently. But Billy’s father may offer Mark a job, so Mark gives Billy a rare Mickey Mantle baseball card hoping to seal the deal.

At his white school, Mark is confronted by BECKY GILMORE, who likes him and always losing when they play a guessing game. When he refuses to give her a chance to get even, she vows to get even with him.

After Mark’s baseball coach chooses a colored pitcher, EDDIE GOSHAY, he and Mark hit it off.  But he is cautious since he knows befriended a colored is dangerous. But Mark learns a lot from Eddie. When Billy notices the friendship, he threatens Mark who in turn stops associating with Eddie.

One day Mark comes home to find a letter from the board of education kicking him out of school because they discover his father is mulatto. Mark refuses to believe it until his mother confirms it. At first he denies it. He even rejects Eddie for fear he will not be accepted by whites.

Mark also hides this from Billy and goes to his house for dinner, hoping to still get the job. At the next practice, the truth comes out and Billy fights Mark. Mark does not get the afterschool job. Mark is now an outcast on the team.

When Mark and his mother are kicked out of their house on the white side of town, they move to the black side. Mark’s sister MELISSA comes home and shares her counterculture views that embrace both races. Mark thinks she’s passing as white and they become estranged.

Mark runs into Becky at the movies and lies to her about why he hasn’t been in school. He is sure she doesn’t believe him.

Mark cannot get into another white school and is forced to attend a colored school.

At first, Mark does not fit in at Frederick Douglass High but finds that the things his white classmates told him about black schools were incorrect. His teachers engage him in lively conversations about activism and conscience, which help him sort out his new life. During a homework assignment, he goes to the library and meets two SNCC members who help him further.

In the meantime, RAY, a white teammate, moves out of the county to avoid integration and Mark fears the team will lose the championship game without him. A new colored boy takes Ray’s place. PETER is a loud mouth and not afraid of whites. After the win, the fans storm the field and go after the colored players. The next day Peter goes missing. Mark tries check up on Eddie after the championship but Eddie accuses him of not helping Peter escape the mob. Mark disagrees and is unsuccessful in regaining his friend.

Mark tries black businesses for afterschool jobs instead of white ones but these businesses are not able to hire because integration is taking their customers.

The following fall, Mark makes friends with TEETER and decides to stay at Douglass. In the meantime Eddie observes Mark with Teeter and appears to soften toward Mark.

When Mark returns from seeking a job and finding none, his mother is gone to the hospital and that night Mark backslides. He is invited to a white college game with Billy but they end up going to the black college to jump unsuspecting students, but when that is unsuccessful, they go to the VA and use BB guns to shoot the lights out at the VA hospital. The police arrive. Billy and his friend HANK get away but Mark is arrested. The police discover Mark’s race and so they call Eddie’s father who turns out to be a Big Brother. They allow Mr. Goshay to take Mark home who present Mark with an ultimatum: be one race or the other and accept the consequences.

In the meantime Eddie observes Mark with Teeter and appears to soften toward Mark.

One morning Mark goes to the pharmacy to fill his mother’s prescriptions and the owner, MR MILLER, offers him a job, but Mark does not tell Mr. Miller he is colored. The assistant manager WILL, turns out to be Becky’s brother. When she comes into the store one day, Mark fears she might blow his cover. He hides to avoid her. She doesn’t get the chance, but Mark still worries she’ll tell Will. Mark later discovers that Mr. Miller is a white supremacist (and volunteer fire fighter) planning to sabotage a civil rights march by filling hoses with 50% DDT.  Mark knows that Eddie participates in those marches so he does research and tries to warn Eddie who again, does not listen.

Mark chooses to expose Mr. Miller so he investigates how DDT is used. When Mark enlists Teeter’s help to steal a can from the store shed, they are caught and Mark realizes that Becky has been following him in a red mustang. Mr. Miller hired her to snoop on Mark, and he threatens the boys. Mark helps Teeter escape. Unable to save himself, Mark is beaten with a leather whip. He eventually escapes and Teeter helps him get treatment.

When Mark returns to school he finds out that Peter has been murdered. Mark tries to make up with Eddie at the funeral and it appears to work. A few days before the march, Mark pleads with his teammates for help him stop the crime, but they do not. Billy confronts Mark and tears up his rare Mickey Mantle baseball card. They fight and Mark resolves to reject his desire to want a white life at any cost.

So now Mark goes it alone. At the 11th hour, the boys come through, forming a human chain between the marchers and the firemen. The police arrest Mr. Miller, and Mark is reunited with Eddie. Mark is a hero on the news, but in the end his mother dies and he and Melissa sit, waiting for children’s services.