Handful re-tells an African legend of people who could fly but who lost their wings once they were taken to America. This young woman is a slave for the Grimke family living in Charleston, South Carolina. The year is 1804. Handful helps her mother, Charlotte, with sewing and the like but is them given to young Sarah Grimke as a slave as a gift for her eleventh birthday. Sarah doesn't want to own a slave and was deeply traumatized to the point of developing a stutter after seeing a slave whipped. She sets Handful free but her parents refuse to honor the wish. Although Handful does poorly as a maid she remains safe from the wrath of Sarah's mother thanks to Sarah's protection. Charlotte elicits a promise from Sarah that one day she will set Handful free.
It is Easter Sunday; the Grimkes attend the Anglican Church in the city and Sarah begins to notice how horribly the slaves from the city are treated. While teaching the colored Sunday school, Sarah tries to teach them the alphabet. She is reprimanded for this as teaching a slave to read is against the law. At home, Missus discovers that someone has stolen a bolt of green silk. While sneaking Handful back to her place outside Sarah's room one night, Charlotte is caught with possession of the silk and is ordered to have the one-legged punishment which leaves her weak. In defiance of her mother Sarah brings her medicine which Handful accepts gladly, although she is growing more wary of the white masters she serves. Sarah was undaunted by the reprimand she received for teaching the alphabet to the city slaves and begins teaching Handful to read as a part of the promise she made to Charlotte. This brings the girls closer and they begin to confide in each other as if they were friends. Sarah tells Handful that she has a silver button that reminds her of her secret goal of becoming a lawyer.
Handful practices her new writing skills by writing in the dirt with a stick but Sarah's sister Mary sees her and tells her parents. Sarah's father John punishes both girls, giving Handful one whip lash and taking Sarah's books away as he deems them unfit for a young lady to read. Sarah is devastated. Handful has more on her mind than the punishment; Charlotte's behavior is becoming increasingly rebellious. Sarah asks her mother if she can be named godmother to her new baby sister and throws away the silver reminder button, but Handful rescues it and secretly keeps it for her. For her part, Handful makes a spirit tree using the red thread she once took Fromm Sarah's mother.
Fast forward six years; Nina, Sarah's godchild, and Handful, help Sarah get ready for a Society ball. Sarah hates attending these occasions as she feels out of place but this time she meets a young man called Burke Williams and falls in love for the first time in her life. Handful feels a distance growing between Sarah and herself, as Nina and Burke occupy most of her life. Handful turns to helping her mother sew the quilt she has been working in for most of Handful's life. Charlotte is also falling for a man; Denmark Vesey is a free black man who lives in Charleston and is all about empowering the slaves. He inspires Charlotte and she begins to squirrel money away to purchase her freedom, and Handful's as well. To keep Sarah away from Burke Williams, whom they believe too "merchant class" for her, the Grimkes go to Charleston to attend a wedding. This is the perfect opportunity for Handful to sneak into the library to read up on the price of freedom for slaves. Freedom for her mother and herself will cost one thousand and fifty dollars. This gives Handful a surprising burst of self-esteem as she sees her value as a person not in a monetary way.
Once the Grimkes are home, Burke begins courting Sarah determinedly. Handful finally gets to meet Vesey but doesn't like him very much. She finds him condescending towards slaves who are not yet free. Sarah receives a marriage proposal from Burke but the timing is unfortunate; her family have become embroiled in an impeachment case connected to her father's position as a judge. He is acquitted but his health has suffered under the stress. Handful discovers her mother is pregnant with Denmark Vesey's child.
Sarah's brother informs her that Burke is actually engaged to three other women as well. He courted her just so he could have sex with her. Sarah breaks off the engagement and withdraws and anxious to pull her out of it, Handful gives her the silver button.
Charlotte is accosted by a white guard because he saw her refusing to step into the mud so that a white woman could pass by. She runs away from the guard and disappears. Handful is upset and grieves her mother so deeply that Sarah is able to put her own broken engagement into proper perspective. Sarah pledges never to marry. She throws herself into news of the abolition of slavery up north and Handful also brings herself out of her stupor of grief and finishes her mother's quilt.
Another six years have passed and it is now 1818. Sarah has given Handful back to her mother Mary Grimke and Handful takes care of all of the sewing for the family in Charlotte's absence. To connect with other slaves in the city Handful joins the African church. Sarah joins the Presbyterian church as she finds more sympathy there with her abolitionist viewpoint. Handful Is arrested for joining the church. Whilst serving out her punishment at the workhouse she is involved in an accident that leaves her with a permanent lump. Sarah cannot believe that her mother allowed this to happen to Handful. Despite the fact that Sarah and Nina try to help her, Handful can no longer bear to be friendly with white women because white people treat slaves so terribly. Sarah's mother is angered by her bond with Handful and sends her north with her father hoping it will be the tonic that his health needs. Once they are settled in at a private resort on the New Jersey Shore, John admits that he actually agrees with his daughter's abolitionist views. He dies whilst they are up north and Sarah writes home that she will be staying north for a while.
Handful finally visits Denmark Vesey and tells him that when Charlotte disappeared she was pregnant with his child. She is surprised to learn that Vesey and his wife helped Charlotte escape although they do not know where she is now. Handful begins to sneak out of the house just like her mother used to but plays the obedient servant in front of Mary and sees her a beautiful mourning dress.
As Sarah travels home by boat she meets a Quaker man on board. Israel Morris gives her a book about his faith and makes her promise to write to him once she finishes it. She cannot get Morris out of her head once she is back at home. Meanwhile Handful is worried that she will be sold now John has passed away but Mary keeps her on because she is such a good seamstress. Sarah is depressed and the only thing that cheers her is debating slavery with her brother. This gives her the courage to write to Israel Morris to ask him how she might become a Quaker. She hears a voice inside her head telling her to go north. Two years later she lives with Morris and his sister but it is thought improper that she lives with a widower for whom she clearly has romantic feelings and she is asked to leave. Now that she has left the south the Grimke house is hellish for the slaves with nobody to protect them from Sarah's mother. Handful escapes to Denmark's house whenever she can and begins helping him recruit more slaves for his rebellion. She steals Teo Bullet mounds for the black army . Sarah returns home when she received a letter from Nina telling her how awful things are without her. As news of the planned slave revolt emerges Sarah becomes a social outcast for defending them. Handful discovers that one of the slaves has betrayed them to his white master. Denmark is put to death and mourning him is forbidden.
In 1836 Charlotte returns to the Grimke house bringing Handful's thirteen year old sister, Sky, with her. They have run from another plantation where Charlotte's many small acts of rebellion are punished but Handful is relieved to see the same glint of rebellion in her mother's face when Handful shows her the finished quilt. Sarah vows to become a Quaker minister to fight injustice against slaves. Sky is constantly in trouble and doesn't fit in with slave life at the Grimke house. Sarah, now a minister, receives a surprising proposal of marriage from Israel Morris and despite her deep love for him she rejects the offer so that she can devote herself to her cause. There is finally good news for Handful as Charlotte reveals five hundred dollars in savings hidden in her portion of the quilt.
For the next year Sarah and Nina exchange letters and Sarah confides that the lack of racial equality even in abolitionist circles is very disheartening. However the news that Nina is coming north to live with her cheers her enormously. Again I'm their absence the slaves suffer not just from Mary but now from her youngest daughter too. Sarah and Nina cause uproar when they sit in the colored pew at church. They are expelled from the Philadelphia Quaker meeting after Nina published a letter in the abolitionist newspaper and now find themselves without a home. They stay in secret with two black Quaker women and continue to send anti-slavery pamphlets south, grabbing the attention of William Lloyd Garrison and Elizur Wright, editors of the most well known abolitionist movements. Handful finds a pamphlet that Sarah wrote. She is amazed by what she reads. Sarah and Nina speak to big crowds supported. Y Theodore Weld and Nina begins a relationship with him. Some in the anti-slavery movement pressure them to keep their feminist ideas to themselves but the sisters protest that they can espouse the ideals of freedom for both slaves and women.
When Little Mary calls Charlotte's quilt ugly Handful reaches her breaking point and writes to Sarah, telling her that she and Sky will be escaping soon. She received the letter whilst attending Nina and Theodore's wedding. Sarah wants to help her escape and despite being banned from entering the south goes home. She asks her mother to grant Handful and Sky their freedom but Mary says this will be granted only on her death. Sarah and Handful disguise the two slaves as ladies in mourning and they manage to slip past guards on the boat going north. Sarah carries Charlotte's quilt in her luggage.
