In Louisiana during the Depression, a black sharecropper goes to prison for stealing food to feed his hungry family.

Akeelah must overcome a distracting home life to compete in the national spelling bee which in turn helps unite her South Los Angeles neighborhood to rally behind her.

Follows several generations in the lives of a slave family. The saga begins with Kunta Kinte, a West African youth captured by slave raiders and shipped to America in the 1700s. The family is depicted up until the Civil War, when Kunte Kinte's grandson gains his emancipation.