''Miss Evers' Boys'' is an American

made-for-television A television film, alternatively known as a television movie, made-for-TV film/movie or TV film/movie, is a feature-length film that is produced and originally distributed by or to a television network, in contrast to theatrical films made for ...

drama Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance: a play, opera, mime, ballet, etc., performed in a theatre, or on radio or television.Elam (1980, 98). Considered as a genre of poetry in general, the dramatic mode has been ...

starring

Alfre Woodard Alfre Woodard (; born November 8, 1952) is an American actress. She has received various accolades, including four Primetime Emmy Awards (tying the record for the most acting Emmys won by an African-American performer, along with Regina King), ...

and

Laurence Fishburne Laurence John Fishburne III (born July 30, 1961) is an American actor. He is a three time Emmy Award and Tony Award winning actor known for his roles on stage and screen. He has been hailed for his forceful, militant, and authoritative charact ...

that first aired on February 22, 1997, and is based on the true story of the four-decade-long

Tuskegee Syphilis Study The Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male (informally referred to as the Tuskegee Experiment or Tuskegee Syphilis Study) was a study conducted between 1932 and 1972 by the United States Public Health Service (PHS) and the Cente ...

. It was directed by

Joseph Sargent Joseph Sargent (born Giuseppe Danielle Sorgente; July 22, 1925 – December 22, 2014) was an American film director. Though he directed many television movies, his best known feature-length works were arguably the action movie '' White Ligh ...

and adapted by

Walter Bernstein Walter Bernstein (August 20, 1919 – January 23, 2021) was an American screenwriter and film producer who was blacklisted by the Hollywood movie studios in the 1950s because of his views on communism. Some of his notable works included ''The F ...

from the 1992 stage play of the same name, written by

David Feldshuh David Mark Feldshuh (born 1944 in New York City) is an American physician, playwright, and author. His 1992 play ''Miss Evers' Boys'', based on the Tuskegee syphilis experiment, was a finalist for the 1992 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. The 1997 adapta ...

. It received twelve nominations for the 1997 Primetime Emmy Awards, ultimately winning five, including Outstanding Television Movie and the President's Award (awarded for programming that best explores social or educational issues).

Plot

The film tells the story of a medical study with covert goals organized by the

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services The United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is a cabinet-level executive branch department of the U.S. federal government created to protect the health of all Americans and providing essential human services. Its motto is " ...

, conducted on poor

African American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...

men in the years 1932–1972 at

Tuskegee University Tuskegee University (Tuskegee or TU), formerly known as the Tuskegee Institute, is a private, historically black land-grant university in Tuskegee, Alabama. It was founded on Independence Day in 1881 by the state legislature. The campus was d ...

, designed to study the effects of untreated

syphilis Syphilis () is a sexually transmitted infection caused by the bacterium ''Treponema pallidum'' subspecies ''pallidum''. The signs and symptoms of syphilis vary depending in which of the four stages it presents (primary, secondary, latent, an ...

. The story is told from the perspective of the small town nurse Eunice Evers (

) who is well aware of the lack of treatment, but feels her role is to console the involved men, many of whom are her close friends. In 1932 she is sent to help Dr. Brodus (

Joe Morton Joseph Thomas Morton Jr. (born October 18, 1947) is an American stage, television and film actor. He has worked with film director John Sayles in ''The Brother from Another Planet'' (1984), '' City of Hope'' (1991) and '' Lone Star'' (1996). Oth ...

) and Dr. Douglas (

Craig Sheffer Craig Eric Sheffer (born April 23, 1960) is an American film and television actor. He is known for his leading roles as Norman Maclean in the film '' A River Runs Through It, ''Aaron Boone in the film ''Nightbreed'', Joe Kane in the film '' The ...

) to help them "treat" rural black men in the town of Tuskegee,

Alabama (We dare defend our rights) , anthem = "Alabama (state song), Alabama" , image_map = Alabama in United States.svg , seat = Montgomery, Alabama, Montgomery , LargestCity = Huntsville, Alabama, Huntsville , LargestCounty = Baldwin County, Al ...

. She is sent around town to tell the people that the government is funding their treatment for free, but unbeknownst to them the government will soon run a study that requires them to go without any form of real treatment. She then comes across three men in an abandoned schoolhouse: Willie Johnson (

Obba Babatundé Obba Babatundé (born Donald Cohen; December 1, 1951) is an American actor. A native of Queens, New York City, he has appeared in more than seventeen stage productions, thirty theatrical films, sixty made-for-television films, and two prime-time ...

), Bryan Hodman, and "Big" Ben Washington, who agree for treatment. The study selected 412 men infected with the disease and promised them free medical treatment for what was called "bad blood". The movie shows Miss Evers suggesting the term as a strategy to withhold information about syphilis from the men. The men received fake long-term treatment, which involved giving them mercury and placebos even after penicillin was discovered as a cure. When Caleb Humphries (one of the test subjects who left the experiment) joins the Army during World War II and is treated and cured by penicillin, he returns to tell how he was cured and tries to get help for his friend. But none of the hospitals would help because the test subjects were placed on a list that stated they should not receive medical treatment because they were participants in the experiment. The survivors of the study did receive treatment and financial compensation after the US Senate investigated in the 1970s, and eventually a formal apology from President

Bill Clinton William Jefferson Clinton ( né Blythe III; born August 19, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 42nd president of the United States from 1993 to 2001. He previously served as governor of Arkansas from 1979 to 1981 and agai ...

Cast

Awards and nominations

References

External links

* * * * * * * {{Joseph Sargent 1990s English-language films 1997 drama films 1997 films 1997 television films African-American drama films American drama television films American films based on plays Films about race and ethnicity Films about racism Films about syphilis American films based on actual events Films directed by Joseph Sargent Films scored by Charles Bernstein Films set in Alabama Films set in the 1930s Films set in the 1940s Films with screenplays by Walter Bernstein HBO Films films Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Made for Television Movie winners 1990s American films