Lena Younger (Claudia McNeil) is the matriarch of a family living in cramped quarters on Chicago's south side. Her husband has just died and she receives a check for $10,000 from the insurance company, quite a sizeable sum at the time. McNeil wants to get out of the ghetto and buy a decent house, then use the rest of the windfall to put her daughter through med school. But her angry, ambitious son (Sidney Poitier), has other ideas.
Lena Younger (Claudia McNeil) is the matriarch of a family living in cramped quarters on Chicago's south side. Her husband has just died and she receives a check for $10,000 from the insurance company, quite a sizeable sum at the time. McNeil wants to get out of the ghetto and buy a decent house, then use the rest of the windfall to put her daughter through med school. But her angry, ambitious son (Sidney Poitier), has other ideas.