Following the death of a racist white farmer, suspicions fly about the murderer's identity. Soon, elderly black man Mathu (Louis Gossett Jr.), a local sharecropper, is pegged as the prime suspect. Concerned about the threat of a lynch mob, Mathu's kind boss, Candy Marshall (Holly Hunter), gathers his friends and co-workers together to protect him. When all Mathu's fellow old men confess to the crime, it makes the investigation by Sheriff Mapes (Richard Widmark) that much trickier. Wikipedia
Following the death of a racist white farmer, suspicions fly about the murderer's identity. Soon, elderly black man Mathu (Louis Gossett Jr.), a local sharecropper, is pegged as the prime suspect. Concerned about the threat of a lynch mob, Mathu's kind boss, Candy Marshall (Holly Hunter), gathers his friends and co-workers together to protect him....