Tom Laughlin is Billy Jack, a half-breed Indian and ex-Green Beret Vietnam veteran, returns to live in solitude on an Arizona Indian reservation. He is drawn to its progressive Freedom School for troubled youth and to the idealistic woman (Taylor) who runs it. She is the embodiment of the film's pacifist message. When tensions flare between the students and narrow-minded locals who fear what they cannot understand, Billy Jack becomes the school's protector.