Medgar Evers is a black civil rights activist in Mississipi, who was killed by a gunman. It is later suspected that Byron De La Beckwith, a racist is the killer and he would be tried a couple of times and both trials ended in hung juries. For more than 20 years, Evers widow Myrlie has been trying to bring De La Beckwith to justice and she believes that she has what it takes to bring him to trial again. However, most of the evidence in the old trial have disappeared but Bobby De Laughter an assistant D.A. decides to do what he can to help her despite being warned that it might hurt his political aspirations and the strain it's causing on his marriage.

Delmar Dennis (a key witness against the murderer, 'Byron De La Beckwith') and his family can be seen as extras in the parade scene. At the film's end, a title card indicated that Bobby DeLaughter had run for a position as a judge and been defeated. That was true at the time. Subsequently, he was appointed to a judgeship and later elected overwhelmingly to that position.

[Quoting Medgar Evers]


Myrlie Evers:
I don't know if I'm going to heaven or to hell, but I'm going from Jackson.

Continuity: When the DeLaughter and his investigators drive up to a gas station, the prices for gas are all under a dollar. When DeLaughter is on the phone to Myrlie Evers standing on the other side of the signs, the prices are all now over a dollar.

Music by Billy Taylor
Lyrics by Billy Taylor and Dick Dallas
Performed by Dionne Farris
Courtesy of Columbia Records
By Arrangement with Sony Music Licensing