Former fashion photographer Randall Harris debuts with this gritty drama about justice and redemption in rural Georgia during the Great Depression. Jesse Banks Rhodes (Harry Connick, Jr.) is suddenly and inexplicably released from jail after serving part of a life sentence on a trumped up charge for murder. He heads back for Georgia to reclaim his life and finds himself staying with farmer Ben Alexander (Pete Postlethwaite). Initially, Ben's family is mistrustful of the ex-con, but slowly they begin to warm to him, particularly Ben's fragile daughter Wesley (Patricia Clarkson). After witnessing the murder of a black worker at the hands of his drunken white racist boss, Jesse vows to make things right.

A Union soldier flees from battle and is rescued unexpectedly by free Black man Kitch and his friends. Risking everything, Kitch takes William deep into the woods to the safety of his adopted home. It's here that William discovers Kitch is a part of secret community of freed slaves, who run a portion of the Underground Railroad. When a ruthless and desperate slave catcher discovers the underground network, he conspires to bring it burning down to the ground.

At the birth of two boys, one white and one black, a mysterious and powerful Conjure Woman (Maya Angelou) prophesies that they will start the change. Growing up as best friends in rural Georgia in the 1940s, the boys make a discovery that leads the town's new sheriff, Frank Richards (Dean Cain), to reopen the investigation of the unsolved murders of three black men. While the town would prefer that the truth remain hidden, the sheriff pursues the case, determined to see justice prevail. The Runaway is a stirring story of how friendship, determination and conviction can generate racial change in one heart or an entire town.

A woman returns to her home town to sort out her troubled marriage and finds new happiness in the rekindling of a broken friendship with her cousin.

A seamstress recalls events leading to her act of peaceful defiance that prompted the 1955 bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama.