The film stars Sidney Poitier as lead NAACP attorney Thurgood Marshall, Richard Kiley as Chief Justice Earl Warren, Burt Lancaster (in his final television role) as lawyer John W. Davis (loser of Briggs v. Elliott and the Democratic candidate in the 1924 US presidential election), Cleavon Little as lawyer and judge Robert L. Carter, and Lynne Thigpen as Ruth Alice Stovall.

On the other hand, Davis and his Ivy League-educated staff find several examples of segregated schools having existed ever since the passage of the equal protection clause.

Finally, the NAACP staffers discover a quote by Thaddeus Stevens delivered on the floor of the Senate during the debate over the Amendment, which directly states segregation is constitutionally and morally wrong.

The epilogue acknowledges Thurgood Marshall's own ascent to the Supreme Court in 1967 and explains that the plaintiff in the companion case, a black student named Briggs, never attended an integrated school.

[5] While generally praising the film, Richard Zoglin in Time Magazine called the portrayal of Warren's visit to Gettysburg "simplistic.