Miss Evers Boys

This powerful drama is a fictional account based on a true government study carried out from
1932 to 1972. In an effort to get medical help for Alabama tenant farmers, their nurse, Miss
Evers, convinces them to join a government study to treat venereal disease. When the money
runs out, Nurse Evers is faced with a difficult decision: to tell the men that they are no longer
being treated and that they are now part of a research study to see what untreated syphilis will do
to them, or follow the lead of the doctor she respects and the tenets of the nursing profession. Her
patients form a Gillee Band called Miss Evers’ Boys – complete with washboard, banjo, kazoo,
and tap dancer. These men have “an aspiration” to perform at the Cotton Club in New York
City.