 He quickly convinces wealthy landowner Verne Shipman to back him, and seduces Ella, the pretty teenage daughter of the local newspaper editor Tom McDaniel.The white locals are not happy about having black students attend the "white school", but prior to Cramer's arrival, most were prepared to grudgingly comply with the law.However, after Cramer, with Shipman's help, makes an inflammatory speech in front of the town hall and organizes a cross burning in the black neighborhood, the whites are moved to violence, first threatening a black family who happen to be driving through town after Cramer's speech, and then blowing up the local black church, killing the preacher.