Social Work and Human Services

1971: In  Durham, North Carolina,  Ann Atwater tries to get better housing conditions for poor black people, and is ignored by the all-white judge panel.  C. P. Ellis is the president of the  KKK, and has a family with children. He loves and cares for his family. Ann's daughters' school catches on fire (whether by accident or arson is unclear), and CP is afraid that the black children will come to the white schools. The city council makes a finding the school is still usable, so the NAACP helps file a lawsuit. The judicial decision is to bring in a proven mediation expert, Bill Riddick, who sets up a meeting with the both of them.

At first, both of them refuse since they hate each other, but then they are convinced. CP is a proud racist and refuses to sit with Bill and Ann, since they are black and he is white. Bill tells them the  charrettes are designed to help groups develop solutions, so this one will tackle school segregation and other educational issues for the whole Durham school district.

They agree to pick some people randomly from the group to vote on the issues at the end of the meeting sessions. CP tries to talk to folks selected to vote, but is mostly rebuffed. A black reverend asks Bill if he can play gospel music at the end of each session. CP hotly refuses, saying if the blacks want to sing gospel music at the charrette, he should be allowed to put out his KKK items to display. Ann refuses, but Bill agrees.

At one meeting, a group of black teenagers tries to destroy the KKK items, but Ann stops and tells them to instead understand what the KKK is. All this is observed by CP from afar.

Then Bill makes the blacks and whites in their group sit next to each other in the cafeteria and eat. He makes CP and Ann sit together alone. They eat in tense silence, then Ann asks CP if he has a boy in Murdock. CP hotly says that he won't talk about his boy. Murdock is a facility that takes care of disabled boys where his son with  Down Syndrome resides.

CP is called to Murdock, and he rushes over. His disabled son, Larry, has been put in the same room with another disabled boy. The other boy is screaming, upsetting Larry. CP demands his son be placed in a room of his own. But the nurses tell him he can't afford it. Later, Ann visits Larry and asks a favor from Bernadette, who works there, to put Larry in his own room.

Bill takes Ann, CP, and the rest of their group to visit the black school that was burned. CP is shocked by how dark and smelly it is, thanks to the damage. Ann's daughter says hi to Ann, but looks at CP like he's evil when she finds out who he is. CP's wife, Mary, is overjoyed with Ann's help, and she visits Ann to thank her. Ann asks her if CP has always been racist, and Mary says yes. Later, CP expresses his confusion over his encounter with Ann's daughter, and how she looked at him like he was a monster to Mary. However, Mary, frustrated at CP's refusal to change even after what Ann did for them, angrily asks CP what he honestly expected. She questions why he's really doing this. Her statement rattles CP and makes him question if he is in fact doing more harm than good as his actions with the KKK have made him a monster to children such as Ann's.

The night before the final vote, CP's KKK troublemaking friends go and threaten the selected voters to vote for segregation. CP finds out about this and is enraged—especially when he learns one of their targets was Lee, who owns a store and served in Vietnam. They are close friends and Lee employs a black manager named Emmett. Having talked to Lee earlier, CP had learned Lee and Emmett served together and it's heavily implied Emmett saved Lee's life. Ann also finds about it and screams at CP, calling him a coward.

During the voting, all the issues pass, coming down to the final issue of desegregation. One by one, the voters vote. Ann votes for it, and CP, surprising everyone, does the same, after realizing the KKK is hateful. He makes a speech and rips up his KKK membership card, much to the fury of his watching KKK friends. They threaten him and try to set the gas station he owns on fire, but CP puts it out. Now the white community won't buy his gas anymore, his station is going out of business. Ann and Bill visit him with smiles and they bring in the black community to buy from him instead.

It is revealed that the real life Ann and CP went around to different cities together, to talk about their experiences and remained friends to the end of CP's life, with Ann giving the eulogy at his funeral.