On June 11, 1963, Vivian Malone and James Hood were the two first African Americans to enroll at the University of Alabama, leading to a showdown with then governor George Wallace. As chief of the CBS Southwest Bureau, Rather had covered the event on-site for CBS, one of many stories he did on the civil rights movement. Thirteen years later, he sat with the main actors, the two former students as well as with George Wallace and Deputy U.S. Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach. They looked back and reflected on one of the decisive moments of American history, one that, at its core, was and remained about people trying to fight for changes and trying to make sense of them. Producer Marion Goldin's notebook documents the extensive pre-production, with preliminary interviews and location shots in Alabama with Viviane Malone and in Detroit with James Hood.

As Marion Goldin remembers, it was a story "Dan was particularly enthusiastic" about, and one can see "how good Dan is in the interviews because this is something he had his heart as well as his mind in, and it shows." She recalls that the result was a timeless piece about a topic still relevant today.