After escaping the coal mines of Kentucky in the 1920’s, two different families start anew in the auto factories of Michigan. They change locations, and better their lives financially, but bring their lack of education, alcoholism and family violence with them. The bad habits repeat with the next generation, and the generation after that. That is, until a young girl, at first caught up in the addictive and destructive behavior herself, breaks the pattern. Through grit and determination she rises out of the county jail and transforms herself all the way through a law-school education.