In 1927, a Bahamian tomato farmer on a routine selling trip to Miami saw his wife go into labor two months early. The baby was so small no one expected him to survive the night, and the family stayed three months before returning to the islands. That premature birth made Sidney Poitier a United States citizen by accident, a legal technicality that later gave him the leverage to open an industry that had been closed to him. This episode traces the grit, activism and immense pressure behind Hollywood's first Black leading man.

The discussion follows his childhood on Cat Island without cars, electricity or American racism, the collision with Jim Crow Miami at 15, a failed audition at the American Negro Theater, and the months he spent learning to read with a waiter and rebuilding his voice by imitating a radio broadcaster. It covers the Army p ...