USA around 1900. The blacks in the South are robbed rapidly off the rights that were granted after the Civil War, and New Orleans is like a powder keg. The young beautiful Creole girl Nora Bass, living with the charismatic jazz pioneer Buddy Bolden, tells candidly about those days, her childhood and relationship problems. Buddy has lovers around town, and Nora loves to dance naked in Storyville, the Red Light District. One July day the black man Robert Charles makes rebellion against police abuse of power, and the powder keg explodes.   In the following days white thugs try to catch all the black people they can locate and massacre is a real threat. Then Nora takes a decision that brings her own life in danger.