In 1955, U.S. Army Master Sergeant Elwood Horne, an African American, brings his younger, blonde German wife, Greta Horne, back to America when he is reassigned to Fort Stewart in Georgia. A self-taught intellectual, he believes himself superior to his fellow Southern soldiers and the officers above him. Although his high rank protects him on base, the moment he steps into the Jim Crow civilian world, Elwood is a second-class citizen. Both whites and other blacks, including his brother, Jesse Horne, resent his beautiful white wife. Though Greta loves him, Elwood realizes they are not intellectually compatible, and that he married her twelve years earlier for her racial status, not for love. Elwood becomes not only contemptuous of his wife, but jealous. As he emotionally withdraws from Greta, her isolation overwhelms her. Meanwhile, Private Larry Vincent, who works for Elwood in the base’s mail department, has a casual, but affectionate sexual relationship with an older woman, Joanne Morse, an insurance saleswoman who usually has affairs with high-ranking officers. Elwood likes Larry because he is educated and comes from an upper-class family, but he cannot understand the young man’s rejection of his privileged background. Greta’s frustration eventually drives her to seduce Larry, but when he rejects her, she commits suicide at an officer’s retirement party. Elwood calls Larry into his office for a final confrontation, blaming the private for the failure of his marriage.