Wilbur Swartz

A dramatization of the events leading up to the 1935 assassination of Huey Long, the flamboyant and controversial governor of Louisiana.

Two black brothers in a traveling minstrel show in the early part of the twentieth century have two different goals. One brother is determined to succeed in a field that is dominated by white performers in blackface, and the other is a composer fighting to break away from the stereotypes associated with black minstrel performers.

Small-time crook Rooney cons his crippled brother, a street-wise news vendor, into snatching a wealthy, emotionally-disturbed runaway to extort money from her parents, but the brother throws the get-rich-quick scheme awry by falling in love with her.

In New Orleans, a relationship between a black man and a white girl leads to a string of murders.

In February, 1962, as the civil rights movement reaches Bayonne, Louisiana, a New York journalist arrives to interview Jane Pittman, who has just turned 110. She tells him her story dating back to her earliest memories before slavery ended. In between the chapters of her life, the present-day struggles of Blacks in Bayonne, urged on by Jimmy, are dramatized.