Plot

A former Sheriff of the southern town dealing with past sins, and a former civil rights worker, withdrawn since the martyrdom of his brother thirty years before, confront a threat to their town.

Gospel Hill is about haunted men, the former Sheriff of the southern town dealing with past sins, and the former civil rights worker withdrawn since the martyrdom of his father thirty years before. Their final confrontation comes when a corporation descends on the town, echoing a struggle thirty years old.—Jeff Stacy

In the town of Julia, the residents of the black neighborhood of Gospel Hill, are being forced out of their homes to make way for a multimillion-dollar golf course development.

Race relations are strained just as they were forty years ago when Peter Malcolm (Samuel Jackson), a black civil rights activist, was assassinated. Dr. Ron Palmer (Giancarlo Esposito), an influential black community leader who runs the emergency clinic in Gospel Hill, is supporting the golf course development and helping to push people off their land.

Peter Malcolm's son, John Malcolm (Danny Glover), withdrew from the community and the fight for civil rights after his father's assassination, haunted by feelings of hatred for Jack Herrod (Tom Bower). Herrod, the towns bigoted, ex-sheriff, was responsible for letting the investigation of Peter's murder dissipate with no one charged.

Meanwhile, Sarah Malcolm (Angela Bassett), Johns wife, takes it upon herself to battle Dr. Palmer and reveal his profiteering to the whole town, exposing him for the greedy man he has become.

Jack's sons are Carl Herrod (Adam Baldwin), an iconoclastic lawyer, who is having an affair with the doctor's wife (Nia Long) and Joel Herrod (Taylor Kitsch), who has tried to distance himself from his father's name and reputation. Joel has a struggling landscaping business that flourishes after he begins to work for Dr. Palmer, but when he falls in love with Rosie (Julia Stiles), a school teacher helping Sarah fight Palmer, the conflict of interest becomes too present to ignore.

These characters lives intertwine as Dr. Palmer obtains real estate and pushes the development to the cities approval; Sarah struggles to get John involved as she fights to expose the doctor; Joel deals with his fathers increasing animosity; Jack Herrod, discovering he is terminally ill, has secretly reopened the case of Peter Malcolm's murder; and John Malcolm begins to realize that the fight for equality didn't die with his father, that it continues in every breath the town takes, and he knows that if Sarah continues to stir the hornets nest that the town of Julia has become, he will be thrust into the position he shared with his father forty years ago.