Cicely Tyson and Melissa Gilbert star in new T.V. drama 'Sweet Justice.'

Jet, Sept 12, 1994

Cicely Tyson and Melissa Gilbert team up and play feisty lawyers who shake up the establishment in a Southern town in the new NBC courtroom drama "Sweet Justice."

In the series, Ms. Tyson is Carrie Grace Battle, an unorthodox, maverick attorney in a city that resembles New Orleans. She has gained a reputation as one of the few local attorneys that people are advised not to mess with. The show will air Saturday nights 9-10 p.m. on NBC.

Melissa Gilbert, who for years was a cast member of the mega-hit series "Little House on the Prairie," is Kate Delacroy, a novice Wall Street attorney who comes back south for her sister's wedding. While there, she is drawn into a child custody case. Initially, she asks Ms. Grace Battle to handle the case. Before long, Kate is working temporarily in Grace Battle's law firm and likes it. That, of course, dismays her father James-Lee Delacroy (Ronny Cox), one of the town's leading conservative lawyers.

Grace Battle's firm, housed in a Victorian home, has several scrappy attorneys, including energetic single mother Reese Daulkins (Cree Summer) of "A Different World"), a passionate upstart Andy Del Sarto (Greg Germann) and the methodical Ross A. Ross (Jim Antonio). Jason Gedrick is cast as young journalist Bailey Connors.

Ms. Tyson's character is a woman who was heavily involved in the Civil Rights Movement with Kate's mother and overcame numerous obstacles to become a lawyer who champions the causes of the underdogs.

In describing her character, Ms. Tyson told JET: "She is an exceptional woman because she has an incredible passion for justice. She went through all the sit-ins, the lieins. She is determined to buck the system. She is a no-nonsense woman. We need to project strong women, especially strong Black women. It's imperative for our young to see women like that."

The role in "Sweet Justice" marks her first weekly television show since "East Side, West Side" back in 1963 when she became the first Black performer in a regular dramatic role. She said she relates strongly to the role of Carrie Grace Battle.

"Attorneys abound on television, but few females on series have actually headed a law firm. I believe I'm the first Black woman to do so on a weekly drama," she said. "Fighting for right is in my genes. Carrie's passion for justice is also mine."

She said Carrie will also have a few surprises for viewers. "She isn't a perfect person by any stretch of the imagination. Carrie Battle will, hopefully, surprise everyone. She is a voracious kind of human being, who takes no nonsense, but is still extremely vulnerable in many instances."

Ms. Gilbert was a television fixture from 1974-83 on NBC's "Little House." She said that both she and Kate Delacroy are idealistic. "Kate Delacroy is a single woman of the '90s," she said. "She's open and idealistic like me. I'm a little more naive, though. I dive into things all wide-eyed and sometimes get smacked in the face by reality...I think it is an incredibly well-written show. We have an amazing cast. I have the best time working with all of these people. Thank goodness."

Always known to do extensive research for her roles, Carrie Grace Battle was no exception for Ms. Tyson. "One of the most extraordinary experiences that I've had in researching was with a woman whose name is Lovey Roundtree, who is presently 81 years old in Washington (DC) and still practicing. Lovey has, in her background, the credit of singlehandedly desegregating Trailways Buses in the early 1960s.

"She also went up against one of the most prestigious law firms in Washington on a case and won. And it so humiliated the law firm that they closed their offices in Washington and moved out. I also spent a good deal of time with Barbara Jordan (former congresswoman and current Texas professor), with Yvonne Brathwaite-Burke (former congresswoman and current Los Angeles County supervisor), with a male attorney, Dr. Walter Leonard, also in Washington. So, I've had quite an interesting experience researching."

Ronny Cox said he was attracted to the series because it shows diversity in the Deep South, not just the bigotry that Hollywood often shows.

"I've just spent the last couple of years in Nashville and Southerners have always been portrayed, especially on television, as just Southern bigots and rednecks. And not that there's not a lot of space for that, but there's an awful lot of intelligent, hip people that live there, too...And I hope that we can show Southerners being intelligent for a change."