In the early 1960s, Adam Cramer arrives in the small Southern United States town of Caxton with an agenda that soon becomes clear. Caxton's "whites only" high school is about to undergo forced desegregation and admit black students due to a court order, and Cramer, purportedly working on behalf of an organization called The Patrick Henry Society, is a racist working to incite the white townspeople to strongly and possibly violently resist the desegregation. Although Cramer is not from the area or even from the South (shown by his lack of a Southern accent), he quickly charms most of the people he meets, presenting himself as a confident, smooth-talking, well-mannered gentleman. He quickly convinces wealthy landowner Verne Shipman to back him, and seduces Ella, the pretty teenage daughter of the local newspaper editor Tom McDaniel.