Sidney Poitier transforms into the man who toppled Jim Crow — one argument at a time.
A dramatization of the events of Brown vs. Board of Education, the American court case that destroyed the legal validity of racial segregation.
Acting
Poitier's controlled fury versus Lancaster's fading Southern aristocrat.
Writing
Courtroom dialogue that makes procedural strategy genuinely thrilling.
Director
George Stevens Jr.
Sidney Poitier
Thurgood Marshall
Burt Lancaster
John W. Davis
Richard Kiley
Chief Justice Earl Warren
Cleavon Little
Robert L. 'Bob' Carter
Gloria Foster
Vivian 'Buster' Marshall
John McMartin
Governor James F. Byrnes
Graham Beckel
Josiah C. Tulley
Jeffrey Wright
William Coleman
Lynne Thigpen
Ruth Alice Stovall
Hallie Foote
Julia Davis
Macon McCalman
W.B. Springer
Randle Mell
Charles L. Black Jr.
Cheryl Lynn Bruce
Gladys Hampton
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
The film was produced for ABC as a prestige TV movie, part of a brief 1990s wave of network event dramas tackling civil rights history.
Poitier had previously played Marshall in 1967's 'Guess Who's Coming to Dinner' — though uncredited, he consulted with the real Marshall for this role.
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