In a small Southern town during the 1950s, black housekeeper and single mother Lilly Harper (Regina Taylor) brings a new perspective on race relations to her employer, district attorney Forrest Bedford (Sam Waterston), and his three children: moody teenager Nathan, bookish Francie and little John Morgan. Bedford often courted controversy for his pro-civil rights viewpoints. Harper is on her own journey of political and personal awareness. The show's title is taken from the title of a Christian hymn written by Albert E. Brumley in 1929.