"Show Me a Hero" is set in an America generations removed from the greatest civil rights struggles of the 1960s. It centers on the young mayor of a midsize American city who is faced with a federal court order that says he must build a small number of low-income housing units in the white neighborhoods of his town. His attempt to do so tears the whole city apart, paralyzes the entire municipal government and, ultimately, destroys the mayor and his political future.