Gospel Hill tells the intersecting story of two men in the fictional South Carolina town of Julia. Danny Glover plays John Malcolm, the son of a slain civil rights activist. Jack Herrod (Tom Bower) is the former sheriff who never got to the bottom of the murder. Their paths begin to cross when a development corporation comes to town with plans to raze Julia's historic Gospel Hill.

A jámbor Louis Pinnoch (John Travolta) tisztességesen és jól dolgozik egy csokoládégyárban. Úgy érzi, hogy saját és családja élete jobbra fordul, amikor váratlanul elbocsátják, és az utcára kerül. Addigi élete szertefoszlik. Végső elkeseredésében túszul ejti a gyár néger tulajdonosát, és végkielégítés megfizetésére kényszeríti. A rendőrség nagy erőkkel keresi a két férfit, akik helyről-helyre menekülnek. Eközben különös kapcsolat alakul ki gazdag és nincstelen között.

Cynthia Wood, a 17-year-old, light-skinned black girl, tries to pass off as white after getting hired of a wealthy movie magnate Mr. Langley who has family problems with his spoiled wife and his promiscuous teenage daughter and son.

Eve Mason, a white-passing black woman, moves to a remote cottage she inherited from her late father. She makes the acquaintance of her neighbor, a dashing black settler named Hugh Van Allen, and quickly falls for him. Trouble brews as the local cadre of racist hucksters want the valuable land Van Allen lives on, and will do anything to take it from him.

The Black middle class, torn between white goals and Black needs, are examined by producers William Greaves and William Branch in a 90-minute NET Journal documentary.