Sidney Poitier directs and stars in this all-black western about an ex-Union Army cavalry soldier leading a group of recently-freed slaves to the western frontier in post-Civil War America. Tagging along with Buck are his wife Ruth (Ruby Dee) and a con man disguised as a preacher (Harry Belafonte, in his first onscreen pairing with Poitier). The black homesteaders` progress is seriously impeded by a sadistic racist (Cameron Mitchell) and his band of murderous thugs who resent the slaves` newfound freedom and wish to send them back to a life of servitude and sharecropping in Louisiana. With equal parts drama and comedy--as well as Biblical allusions to the story of Exodus--Buck and his followers must summon all their courage to contend with the racists on their journey to freedom.