Eleanor travels Birmingham’s back roads after touring a new housing project, noting both improvements and compromises. She hurries to day two of the Southern Conference for Human Welfare, where rumors say Public Safety Commissioner Bull Connor will enforce segregation. She and Mary have prepared a response, and Eleanor has brought a ruler and pencil as “equipment.”

Arriving late, Eleanor takes her reserved front-row seat beside Mary. As Governor Bibb Graves concludes and Justice Hugo Black begins, a young police officer insists Eleanor move to the white section. Earl steps in, but the officer cites Birmingham’s segregation laws and identifies Eleanor as sitting in the “colored” area.

Bull Connor arrives, orders Eleanor to move, and threatens to detain her for violating the law. Weighing the risk to Franklin’s administration against capitulating to Jim Crow, Eleanor executes the plan: she lifts her chair, measures the aisle’s midpoint with her ruler, marks it, and places her chair precisely at center—neither white nor colored—boxing Connor into inaction while avoiding arrest.

As the audience watches her quiet protest and Justice Black’s speech is eclipsed, Eleanor thinks ahead to her remarks condemning the Nazi pogrom of Kristallnacht and urging Americans to uphold universal human rights. Privately, she arranges for Mary to stay discreetly in her hotel, reinforcing their partnership amid Southern segregation.