Trivia

This was Burt Lancaster's final performance. On November 30, 1990, shortly after filming ended, he suffered a massive stroke and remained incapacitated for the final four years of his life.

In a February 2024 interview with Tanya Mosley on the National Public Radio program "Fresh Air," Jeffrey Wright recalled his experience acting with Sidney Poitier in this miniseries (Wright's second credited onscreen role): "My first significant role on film was opposite Sidney, which was frightening. I mean, I was, I think 23 maybe. I was 23, 24, just out of college, you know, a couple of years before. I had started acting my junior year of college, so I didn't really have a lot of experience. And the only reason I got that job was because I had a--I didn't have--it wasn't because I had an MFA in theater and acting. It was because I had a political science degree, and they assumed that I knew a little bit about the subject. It was a miniseries called 'Separate But Equal' about the Brown v. Board of Education case. I was to play the youngest of the lawyers working with the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, a man named Bill Coleman, and I had no clue really what I was doing. But, you know, there I was. They said, yeah, you know, he - guess he's reasonably smart. Get him in there. And I remember just, you know, my first single shot was opposite Sidney Poitier, who was everything. You know, he was the--I mean, he was the captain of the ship for an actor such as myself, and he was so wonderful, so gracious, so generous and just, like, kind of a naturally elegant man. And he was everything that you would expect he would be. So at the end of the experience--and I brought my mom down, of course. We shot down in Charleston, South Carolina. She got to meet him. You know, she--you know, she's a lawyer. You know, these were heroes of hers. Thurgood Marshall, Sidney was playing. And so anyway, at the end of the production, I said, 'so, you know, Mr. Poitier, you know, any - have any advice for. . . . You know, for me?' And he said, 'yeah, irony.' That was it. And I understood exactly what he was saying. I understood exactly. 'Cause I was playing everything right down the middle of the road. . . . He was saying, 'yeah, paint outside the box,' you know? Come at it sideways."