In the small town of Edna, Texas, in 1951, field hand Pete Hernández killed a tenant farmer after exchanging words in a cantina. From this murder emerged a landmark civil rights case that would change the lives and legal standing of tens of millions of Americans. Tells the story of an underdog band of Mexican American lawyers who took their case all the way to the Supreme Court, where they challenged Jim Crow-style discrimination against Mexican Americans. Lawyers forged a daring legal strategy, arguing that Mexican Americans were "a class apart" from a legal system that recognized only blacks and whites.