It is the 1930’s, the height of the Depression, and in rural Maycomb County, Alabama a young black man named Tom Robinson (Brock Peters) stands accused of raping a white girl. Atticus Finch (Gregory Peck), a thoughtful and principled local attorney, has been assigned to defend him at trial, an impossible task in his racially divided town. While Atticus suffers through the accusations and humiliations leveled at him by his fellow townsfolk, he determinedly stands by his promise to represent Tom, a man he knows to be innocent, while at the same time trying his best to pass on his own ideals of fairness and justice to his two young children, Scout (Mary Badham) and Jem (Phillip Alford) in the face of the blind hatred, ignorance and intolerance that surround them.