Set during the late 1950s and early 1960s,[1][2][3] in an unspecified Southern U.S. state, it stars Regina Taylor as Lilly Harper, a Black housekeeper for the family of district attorney Forrest Bedford, played by Sam Waterston (the character's name is a twist on the name of Confederate Army General Nathan Bedford Forrest, an early leader of the Ku Klux Klan).

I'll Fly Away won two 1992 Emmy Awards (Eric Laneuville for Outstanding Individual Achievement in Directing in a Drama Series for the episode "All God's Children", and for series creators Joshua Brand and John Falsey for Outstanding Individual Achievement in Writing in a Miniseries or a Special), and 23 nominations in total.

[4] After the program's cancellation, a two-hour film, I'll Fly Away: Then and Now, was produced, to resolve dangling storylines from season two, and provide the series with a true finale.

[8] At various points, the District of Columbia and these Southern states were mentioned in ways that eliminate them as possible settings: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Maryland, Mississippi, North Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia.

In the late 1950s and early 1960s, the Fifth Circuit comprised Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas, Georgia, and the Panama Canal Zone.