Watch A Soldier's Story

While the world is busy fighting fascism in 1944, black soldiers in the segregated U.S. Army are fighting racism, and struggling with each other in the drama "A Soldier's Story." When one soldier is found shot and killed near his Louisiana military base, a lawyer who is a captain (Howard E. Rollins), travels from Washington to the deep South in order to handle the murder investigation. He is the first black officer anyone has ever seen. As the captain conducts interviews and learns of a drill sergeant's bullying and cruelty with the unit, the audience sees flashbacks and hears different versions of troubling incidents among the men. The action shifts back and forth from the present to recent past to present again until, gradually, the killer is revealed. Adolph Caesar, David Alan Grier, Robert Townsend, Larry Riley, Dennis Lipscomb and Denzel Washington round out the cast in this play (originally titled "A Soldier's Play") turned film.