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Rev. John Henry Davis is one of the unsung heroes of the mid-twentieth century civil rights movement. At the age of five, John was confronted with racial hatred and oppression related to the sharecropping system of farming. John decides to live his life fighting injustice and oppression in America. With his family's support and values, he discovers at age twelve that he can overcome the evil sharecropping system and "farm and make some money for myself and my family." His family joins the Lutheran Church, because "they were the first white people in the area who helped black people." The Lutherans offer elementary and high school education to blacks. John excels in academics and football, and that attracts an Alabama A & M College recruiter. Before John starts college, the Army drafts him to fight in World War II. John suffers a severe shoulder injury before basic training, and the Army grants him a medical discharge. He returns to Alabama A & M where he is introduced to organized civil rights activities. John becomes a leader. On returning home for college summer break, John attempts to register to vote at his county courthouse. The county clerk refuses to register him. His father kicks him out of the family home in fear of white retaliation for John's voter registration attempt. Undeterred, John goes to Mobile, Alabama where he lives with his brother and works at several summer jobs. On his return to college, he starts a campus chapter of the NAACP. The state NAACP convention chooses John as the student member of a delegation to meet with President Truman and the Alabama congressional delegation about black voting rights. When the NAACP group arrives at the White House, an Alabama congressional aide tells them that the Alabama senators and representatives have not arranged the meeting with the President, although they had promised the NAACP group that they would. Because of a vow John had made to "see President Truman even if it costs me my life," John stays in Washington D.C. while the others go home. After sitting on the White House steps for three days, John finally receives an audience with the President. President Truman engages in political maneuvering that results in John and other blacks and poor whites voting in Alabama in 1948 for the first time since Reconstruction. After college graduation, John marries his high school and college sweetheart. The marriage is brief due to his continuing efforts throughout Alabama to register people - especially black people - to vote. John remarries and has children while continuing a strenuous schedule of civil rights activities, registering people to vote, teaching and farming. John leads efforts to begin a Head Start program in St. Clair county to prepare poor children for elementary school. The white establishment fights him until they control Head Start.

The Black Muslims contact John about managing several farms they own in Alabama and Georgia. When the Ku Klux Klan discovers who owns the farms, they kill all the cattle and make multiple attempts to kill John. After the KKK burns down a newly built brick home for John and his family on one of the farms, and kill a second herd of cattle, the farms are put up for sale. Still determined to improve life for black people in Alabama, John joins the Alabama Democratic Conference (A.D.C.) that focuses on registering blacks to vote, helping blacks win campaigns for elected office, and succeed in elected office. These efforts have resulted in the Alabama of today having more African-American elected officials per capita than any other state.