Pinky, a light skinned black woman, returns to her grandmother's house in the South after graduating from a Northern nursing school. Pinky tells her grandmother that she has been "passing" for white while at school in the North. In addition, she has fallen in love with a young white doctor, who knows nothing about her black heritage.

On America's frontier, a St. Louis woman marries a New Mexico cattleman who is seen as a tyrant by the locals.

The story of Mexican revolutionary Emiliano Zapata, who led a rebellion against the corrupt, oppressive dictatorship of president Porfirio Díaz in the early 20th century.