A Black civil rights attorney from New York, Conrad Lynn, got in touch with Robert Williams, offering to represent the boys. Mr. Williams had already drawn the ire of white residents in Monroe.

That segregation was enforced with violence. If a white boy spoke to a black boy, that was an automatic go down to the White House for a beating, and that was vice versa. If the black boys ...

This is the real story behind the Oscar-nominated film Nickel Boys, a film inspired by a novel rooted in pain, horror and trauma that survivors still experience today.