Percy Julian broke into a scientific establishment that did not want him there, and this film traces how a Black chemist born in segregated Alabama became one of the most productive industrial chemists of the twentieth century. Denied faculty positions despite his doctorate from Vienna, Julian found work at the Glidden Company, where he devised a cheap method to synthesize progesterone and later cortisone from soybean oil, putting treatments within reach of ordinary patients instead of the wealthy few. Interviews with historians and Julian's own family sit alongside archival photographs and reenactments of his career, including his years at DePauw University and the professional slights that followed him even after success. The film does not soften the cost: when Julian finally bought a house in Oak Park, Illinois, in 1950, it was firebombed, and his family faced ongoing threats. It closes on the tension between his scientific triumphs, including over one hundred patents, and a country still unwilling to fully accept him.