Serling originally wrote the story about the lynching of a young African-American in the Southern United States.

Due to objections from the program's commercial sponsors, who were concerned with offending white Southern viewers, it was not produced and aired until Serling moved the story's setting out of the South and changed the victim from black to Mexican.

The production opens with a reporter, Hennify (played by James Gregory), dictating the story of a lynching to be wired back to his newspaper in St. Louis.

Pancho Rivera, a 19-year-old Mexican boy, is jailed in Dempseyville, a small southwestern town suffering from drought and heat.

Pancho is charged with attempted robbery of the general store and assault on the wife of the shopkeeper, Jerry Paul (played by William Shatner).

Paul taunts Pancho's brother, Ramon, challenging him to enter the segregated saloon.

Hennify writes that the rain came too late, because the town had already turned to dust due to prejudice and violence.

[6] Serling originally wrote the story about lynching in the Southern United States based on the killing of Emmett Till in particular.

[7][8][9] Concerned with offending white viewers in the South, the program's commercial sponsors were unwilling to tackle Southern racism.

[7][10] Serling was only able to have the story told by switching the time to the late 19th century, the setting to the southwest, and the victim to a Mexican.

[12]Another sponsor, Prudential Insurance Co., objected to the original ending of the story in which Sheriff Denton committed suicide.

He praised Serling's "vivid dialogue, Frankenheimer's "simply superb" direction, and the "superlative" performances of Steiger and Shatner.

[13] William Ewald of the UPI called it "a play with good bones", "plenty of meat", and "dialogue that swirled."

[14] In The Boston Globe, Elizabeth W. Driscoll called it "a taut 90 minutes of live-from-Hollywood theatre.

Broadcast on 3 July that year, Steiger reprised his lead role, with Alvin Rakoff producing and directing.

[17] The Daily Telegraph called the production "A stark and savage drama - only occasionally dropping into melodrama,"[18] while the Daily Mirror reported that "The usual bunch of lunatics had rung up to protest against children being exposed to a tough scene.