''Miss Evers' Boys'' is an American

made-for-television A television film, alternatively known as a television movie, made-for-TV film/movie, telefilm, telemovie or TV film/movie, is a film with a running time similar to a feature film that is produced and originally distributed by or to a Terrestr ...

drama Drama is the specific Mode (literature), mode of fiction Mimesis, represented in performance: a Play (theatre), play, opera, mime, ballet, etc., performed in a theatre, or on Radio drama, radio or television.Elam (1980, 98). Considered as a g ...

starring

Alfre Woodard Alfre Woodard ( ; born November 8, 1952) is an American actress. Known for portraying strong-willed and dignified roles on stage and screen, she has received various accolades, including four Emmy Awards, a Golden Globe Award, and three Scree ...

and

Laurence Fishburne Laurence John Fishburne III (born July 30, 1961) is an American actor. Throughout his career, he has gained recognition for his roles on stage and screen as militant and authoritative characters. List of awards and nominations received by Laur ...

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 Cent ...

. It was directed by

Joseph Sargent Joseph Sargent (born Giuseppe Danielle Sorgente; July 22, 1925 – December 22, 2014) was an American film director. He is best known for his feature-length works, like the action movie '' White Lightning'' starring Burt Reynolds, the biopi ...

and adapted by Walter Bernstein from the 1992 stage play of the same name, written by David Feldshuh. 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, conducted on poor

African American African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an Race and ethnicity in the United States, American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from an ...

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, United States. It was founded as a normal school for teachers on July 4, 1881, by the ...

, 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 depend on the stage it presents: primary, secondary, latent syphilis, latent or tertiary. The prim ...

. 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) and Dr. Douglas ( Craig Sheffer) to help them "treat" rural black men in the town of Tuskegee,

Alabama Alabama ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern and Deep South, Deep Southern regions of the United States. It borders Tennessee to the north, Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia to the east, Florida and the Gu ...

. 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 and lawyer who was the 42nd president of the United States from 1993 to 2001. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, ...

Cast

as Nurse Eunice Evers (based on Eunice Rivers Laurie, RN) *

as Caleb Humphries * Craig Sheffer as Dr. Douglas * Joe Morton as Dr. Sam Brodus *

as Willie Johnson * Ossie Davis as Mr. Evers * E.G. Marshall as The Senate Chairman

Awards and nominations

References

External links

*
''Miss Evers' Boys''
at the

British Film Institute The British Film Institute (BFI) is a film and television charitable organisation which promotes and preserves filmmaking and television in the United Kingdom. The BFI uses funds provided by the National Lottery to encourage film production, ...

* * * * {{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 medical malpractice Films about race and ethnicity Films about racism in the United States 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