At the height of segregation in the United States, an unlikely alliance between a black medical genius and a white surgeon led to some of the 20th century's pioneering medical breakthroughs.

The improbable alliance of black medical genius Vivien Thomas and white surgeon Alfred Blalock began in Depression-era Nashville. Their work together at Vanderbilt University and later at Johns Hopkins led to one of the century's signal medical breakthroughs: the pioneering of daring heart operations that saved thousands of children afflicted with a congenital heart defect called "blue baby syndrome." Blalock and Thomas went on to train two generations of America's most prominent cardiac surgeons. Morgan Freeman narrates this compelling and heroic tale of two men whose social and cultural differences could not stand in the way of their quest to alleviate human suffering.