Crisis: Behind a Presidential Commitment

Thanks to portable cameras and lightweight sound equipment, filmmaker Robert Drew and his team were able to follow presidential candidate John F. Kennedy from very close up during the Democratic primary in 1960. The result was his groundbreaking film Primary. In June 1963, he once again trained Drew Associates' cameras on Kennedy and his staff. The president was facing great tension in American politics and society. In spite of a federal ruling, Governor George Wallace was threatening to deny two black students access to the "white" University of Alabama. Attorney General Robert Kennedy had to move mountains to overcome the crisis. He advised the president and developed a strategy for Alabama, and Drew filmed this as well. We learn what Wallace thought about racial segregation and follow the two students in question right up to the moment of truth. Will the governor let them in, or will he dig in his heels? A poignant moment in the ongoing history of racism in the United States.