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Our narrative begins with a glimpse of Haiti, 1804 - a time of bloody revolution that would forever influence race realtions and politics in the southern states of America. A young black woman, Josette Metroyer (VICTORIA ROWELL) rescuses a little black girl who has been left in the street, clinging to her white father's massacred body.

We cut to New Orleans, 1822. The little girl is now a woman, Cecile St. Marie (GLORIA RUEBEN) and is still protected by the now much older Josetter, who found her.

The concept of placage (the keeping of colored women by white landowners) is introduced at a quadroon ball where lovely copper-skinned young ladies dance with white gentlemen. The wealthy, but ailing, plantation owner Magloire Dazincourt strikes a deal with his young cousin Phillippe Ferronnaire (PETER GALLAGHER). Phillippe will enter into a loveless marriage with Magloire's eldest daughter, Agale (JENNY LEVINE) in exchange for control of Bontemps, the family plantation. Agale doesn't have a choice in the matter, but her resentrment of the situation is clear.

After Magloire's death, Phillipe enters into placage with Cecile St. Marie, and a golden-haired, green-eyed son is born. He may not have the Ferronnaire name, but Phillipe promises Cecile that Marcel St. Marie will be given a much-coveted education in Paris upon his eighteenth birthday.

Sixteen years later, Marcel is an innocent young man who believes the best is yet to come. When a famous novelist and a free man of color, Christophe Mercier (DANIEL SUNJATA), returns to New Orleans to open a school, Marcel jumps at the chance to attend and be educated by his idol, in preperation for his years in Paris.

Marcel also befriends cabinetmaker Jean-Jacques (OSSIE DAVIS), who gives Marcel a glimpse of the gens de couleur libres history he never knew existed. Jean-Jacques promises he will leave Marcel his ledgers detailing the dark history, but Cecile burns the ledgers in a futile attempt to protect Marcel from his own ancestoral history.

Marcel loves Anna Bella ( BIANCA LAWSON), but her guardian, Elsie Claviere (RUBY DEE) instructs her to enter into placage with Phillippe's brother-in-law, Vincent Dazincourt (ALEC MCCLURE). Marecl's sister Maire loves Richard Lermontant (JASON OLIVE), the son of affluent and well-regarded mortician Rudolph Lermontant (BEN NEREEN), but her happiness is at stake because others have dark plans for her.

The debts accured by Phillippe in maintaining his second family are discovered by his wife, who insists that he change his ways or she will proceed against him in a court of law. Trying to survive financially, Phillippe agrees to tthe proposal that Richard Lermontant marry Marire, but as a condition, Marcel must forgo his Paris education and begin work as an undertaker's apprentice. Through his edication with Christophe, Marcel was just beginning his own pilgramge to adulthood. That journey halted abruptly when he is told that he must master a trade to support himself, instead of completing his studies.

Marcel sees his father's actions as betrayal, and without attention to consequence, he goes to the Bontmeps plantation and calls his father a liar in front of Aglae and their legitimate children. Phillippe loses his composure and brutally beats Marcel.

Marcel revolts and seeks the truth about who he is, and how he is supposed to become. With the help of his aunt Josette, he learns morea bout his African heritage and the politics of race. Through the suicide of his slave half-sister Lisette (RACHEL LUTTRELL), the rape of his sister Marie, and the unhappy placage entered into by Anna Bella, he sees his first hand the tragic effects of slavery and racial prejudice.

As he finds his individual path into the future, Marcel is fully aware that he is a true child of African and European ancestry, but his uniquely American.