Emmy award-winning fact-based drama drawn from David Feldshuh's stage play. In 1932, at the prestigious Tuskegee Institute in Macon county, Alabama, the U.S. Public Health Service began a research project that would earn notoriety as a signal event in the annals of unethical experimentation on human beings. Four hundred twelve African-American men, all of them impoverished sharecroppers infected with syphilis, were recruited to take part in an experiment they were told would provide treatment for their "bad blood." Over the next 40 years, the subjects received no proper treatment for their disease, the deadly course of which was the true focus of the research. In this HBO movie, the story is told from the point of view of Eunice Evers. A nurse who was aware of the real nature of the study, Evers never revealed it, but dedicated herself to caring for the afflicted men. Fishburne plays Caleb Humphries, one of unfortunate volunteer subjects.