An adaptation of Hampton Sides' unfinished novel I Am a Man, about the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the search for his killer James Earl Ray. It follows the time King came to Memphis to lead a protest of garbage workers and made the garbage strike part of his Poor People's Campaign. After calling off a first march because of violence, he returned, despite a premonition he would be killed in Memphis. He was shot on a hotel balcony by Ray, who was caught two months later, just before fleeing to Rhodesia.